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FAITH OR FACT 



illustrating conflicts between credulity and vitalized 
thought; superstition and realism; tradition and 
verity; dogma and reason; bigotry and tolerance; 
ecclesiastical error and manifest truth; theology 
and rationalism; miracle and immutable law; pious 
ignorance and secular intelligence; hypocrisy and 
sincerity; theocracy and democracy. 



HENRY M. TABER. 

■ 

II 77 // PREFACE B ) r 

Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. 



" — .Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 

To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." — Moore. 



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\J 



NEW YORK. 
PETER ECKLER, PUBLISHER, 

No. 35 Fulton Street. ^ 

i8 97 . 



J) L n is- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897, 

BY HENRY. M TABER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



The Exkler Prejj 

s3s5 FULTON s5T. 

New York. 



DEDICATION. 

To the lovers of mental freedom, of every 

land, and especially those who have endured 

the sneers, the invectives, the ostracisms, the 

persecutions, of orthodox Christianity ; this 

unpretentious volume is sympathetically and 

affectionately inscribed. 

The Author. 



INTRODUCTION. 

IN introducing Faith or Fact to my readers I wish to say 
that it is composed of a series of articles which have 
appeared from time to time, within the past seven years, in 
the Frecthought Magazine of Chicago, and that I have yielded 
to the flattering solicitations of many of my best friends in 
placing this collection before the public in its present form. 

I ask for a candid, unprejudiced judgment on my book, and 
nothing will give me greater pleasure than to have pointed out 
to me any error of fact into which I may have, inadvertently, 
been drawn ; my aim having been to search for and to record 
the truth. 

It is significant that, in support of my positions, I furnish 
authorities mostly from Christian writers, the larger number 
of whom being clergymen. 

It appears to me that Christianity has invited criticism, if 
not censure, by reason of its inculcation of belief by faith alone 
regardless-of opposing and incontrovertible fact ; by reason 
of its credulity, its superstitions, its intolerance ; of its arrogant 
pretensions ; its dogma of inspiration, of the fall of man, of 
eternal punishment, of the trinity, of the atonement, of a 
personal devil ; its pretended knowledge of the ' ' unknowable, ' ' 
and of a future life ; its anathema of doubt ; its insistence upon 
unprovable miracles : its antagonism to the later discoveries 
of science ; its conflict with civil liberty ; its unjustice in the 
matter of exempting church property from taxation, and of its 

(v) 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

persistence in the teaching of religion in the public schools ; 
its efforts in behalf of uniting the church with the state (even 
to the extent of christianizing the constitution of the United 
States) — thus endangering the very life of the nation ; its 
untruthful claim that there is authority (even on Christian 
grounds) for the religious observance of Sunday and its wrong- 
ful and tyrannical denial of innocent amusement on that day ; 
its assumption of superior wisdom, higher civilization and 
purer morality ; its unsupported claim to greater respect for 
the position of woman ; its false claim that Christianity is an 
original (and not a borrowed) religion ; its departure from the 
religion of Christ and its substituting therefor the religion of 
Paul, supplemented by that of the church fathers ; its unwar- 
rantable claim that there is reliable evidences of answer to 
prayer ; its sometimes questionable methods in making con- 
verts to its doctrines. These, one and all, (and more than 
these) would seem to render Christianity amenable to careful 
enquiry and rigid scrutiny. When I speak of Christianity, I 
refer to the orthodox branch of that system of religion and not 
to the true followers of Christ, who reject the unbelievable 
dogmas of that (the larger) branch of the Christian church. 

HENRY M. TABER. 
May, 1897. 



PREFACE BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 

I LIKE to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of 
an honest, intelligent man ; candor is always charming, 
and it is a delight to feel that you have become acquainted 
with a sincere soul. 

I have read this book with great pleasure, not only because 
I know and greatly esteem the author, not only because he is 
my unwavering friend, *but because it is full of good sense, 
of accurate statement, of sound logic, of exalted thoughts 
happily expressed, and for the further reason that it is against 
tyranny, superstition, bigotry, and every form of injustice, 
and in favor of every virtue. 

Henry M. Taber, the author, has for many years taken 
great interest in religious questions. He was raised in an 
orthodox atmosphere, was acquainted with many eminent 
clergymen from whom he endeavored to find out what 
Christianity is — and the facts and evidence relied on to 
establish the truth of the creeds. He found that the clergy of 
even the same denomination did not agree — that some of them 
preached one way and talked another and that many of them 
seemed to regard the creed as something to be accepted 
whether it was believed or not. He found that each one gave 
his own construction to the dogmas that seemed heartless or 
unreasonable. While some insisted that the Bible was abso- 
lutely true and the creed without error, others admitted that 
there were mistakes in the sacred volume and that the creed 

(vii) 



Vlll PREFACE. 

ought to be revised. Finding these differences among the 
ministers, the shepherds, and also finding that no one pre- 
tended to have any evidence except faith or any facts but 
assertions, he concluded to investigate the claims of Christi- 
anity for himself. 

For half a century he has watched the ebb and flow of public 
opinion, the growth of science, the crumbling of creeds — the 
decay of the theological spirit, the waning influence of the 
orthodox pulpit, the loss of confidence in special providence 
and the efficacy of prayer. 

He has lived to see the church on the defensive — to hear 
faith asking for facts — and to see the shot and shell of science 
batter into shapelessness the fortresses of superstition. He has 
lived to see infidels, blasphemers and agnostics the leaders of the 
intellectual world. In his time the supernaturalists have lost 
the sceptre and have taken their places in. the abject rear. 

Fifty years ago the orthodox Christians believed their creeds. 
To them the Bible was an actual revelation from God. Every 
word was true. Moses and Joshua were regarded as philoso- 
phers and scientists. All the miracles and impossibilities 
recorded in the Bible were accepted as facts, Credulity was 
the greatest of virtues. Everything, except the reasonable, 
was believed, and it was considered wickedly presumptuous to 
doubt anything except facts. The reasonable things in the 
Bible could safely be doubted, but to deny the miracles was 
like the sin against the Holy Ghost. In those days the 
preachers were at the helm. They spoke with authority. 
They knew the origin and destiny of the soul. They were on 
familiar terms with the Trinity — the three-headed God. They 
knew the narrow path that led to heaven and the great high- 
way along which the multitude were traveling to the Prison of 
Pain. 



PREFACE. IX 

While these reverend gentlemen were busy trying to prevent 
the development of the brain and to convince the people that 
the good in this life were miserable, that virtue wore a crown 
of thorns and carried a cross, while the wicked and ungodly 
walked in the sunshine of joy, yet that after death the wicked 
would be eternally tortured and the good eternally rewarded. 
According to their pious philosophy the good God punished 
virtue, and rewarded vice, in this world — and in the next, 
rewarded virtue and punished vice. 

These divine truths filled their hearts with holy peace — with 
pious resignation. It would be difficult to determine which 
gave them the greater joy — the hope of heaven for themselves, 
or the certainty of hell for their enemies. For the grace of 
God they were fairly thankful, but for his "justice" their 
gratitude was boundless. From the heights of heaven they 
expected to witness the eternal tragedy in hell. 

While these good divines, these doctors of divinity, were 
busy misinterpreting the Scriptures, denying facts and describ- 
ing the glories and agonies of eternity, a good many other 
people were trying to find out something about this world. 
They were busy with retort and crucible, searching the heavens 
with the telescope, examining rocks and craters, reefs and 
islands, studying plant and animal life, inventing ways to use 
the forces of nature for the benefit of man, and in every direc- 
tion searching for the truth. They were not trying to destroy 
religion or to injure the clergy. Many of them were members 
of churches and believed the creeds. The facts they found 
were honestly given to the world. Of course all facts are the 
enemies of superstition. The clergy, acting according to the 
instinct of self-preservation, denounced these "facts" as 
dangerous and the persons who found and published them 
as infidels and scoffers. Theology was arrogant and bold. 



X PREFACE. 

Science was timid. For some time the churches seemed to 
have the best of the controversy. Many of the scientists 
surrendered and did their best to belittle the facts and patch up 
a cowardly compromise between Nature and Revelation — that 
is, between the true and the false. 

Day by day more facts were found that could not be recon- 
ciled with the Scriptures, or the creeds. Neither was it 
possible to annihilate facts by denial. The man who believed 
the Bible could not accept the facts, and the man who believed 
the facts could not accept the Bible. At first, the Bible was 
the standard, and all facts inconsistent with that standard were 
denied. But in a little while science became the standard, 
and the passages in the Bible contrary to that standard had to 
be explained or given up. Great efforts were made to harmo- 
nize the mistakes in the Bible with the demonstrations of 
science. It was difficult to be ingenious enough to defend 
them both. The pious professors twisted and turned but found 
it hard to reconcile the creation of Adam with the slow develop- 
ment of man from lower forms. They were greatly troubled 
about the age of the Universe. It seemed incredible that until 
about six thousand years ago there was nothing in existence 
but God — and nothing. And yet they tried to save the Bible 
by giving new meanings to the inspired texts, and casting a 
little suspicion on the facts. 

This course has mostly been abandoned, although a few 
survivals, like Mr. Gladstone, still insist that there is no con- 
flict between Revelation and Science. But these champions 
of Holy Writ succeed only in causing the laughter of the 
intelligent and the amazement of the honest. The more 
intelligent theologians confessed that the inspked writers could 
not be implicitly believed. As they personally knew nothing 
of astronomy or geology and were forced to rely entirely on 



PREFACE. XI 

inspiration, it is wonderful that more mistakes were not made. 
So it was claimed that Jehovah cared nothing about science, 
and allowed the blunders and mistakes of the ignorant people 
concerning everything except religion, to appear in his super- 
natural book as inspired truths. 

The Bible, they said, was written to teach religion in its 
highest and purest form — to make mankind fit to associate 
with God and his angels. True, polygamy was tolerated and 
slavery established, yet Jehovah believed in neither, but on 
account of the wickedness of the Jews was in favor of both. 

At the same time quite a number of real scholars were 
investigating other religions, and in a little while they were 
enabled to show that these religions had been manufactured by 
men — that their Christs and apostles were myths and that all 
their sacred books were false and foolish. This pleased the 
Christians. They knew that theirs was the only true religion 
and that their Bible was the only inspired book. 

The fact that there is nothing original in Christianity, that 
all the dogmas, ceremonies and festivals had been borrowed, 
together with some mouldy miracles used as witnesses, weak- 
ened the faith of some and sowed the seeds of doubt in many 
minds. But the pious petrefactions, the fossils of faith, still 
clung to their book and creed. While they were quick to see 
the absurdities in other sacred books, they were either uncon- 
sciously blind or maliciously shut their eyes to the same 
absurdities in the Bible. They knew that Mohammed was 
an impostor, because the citizens of Mecca, who knew him, 
said he was, and they knew that Christ was not an impostor 
because the people of Jerusalem, who knew him, said he was. 
The same fact was made to do double duty. When they 
attacked other religions it was a sword and when their religion 
was attacked it became a shield. 



Xll PREFACE. 

The men who had investigated other religions turned their 
attention to Christianity. They read our Bible as they had 
read other sacred books. They were not blinded by faith or 
paralyzed by fear, and they found that the same arguments 
they had used against other religions destroyed our own. 

But the real old-fashioned orthodox ministers denounced the 
investigators as infidels and denied every fact that was incon- 
sistent with the creed. They wanted to protect the young 
and the feeble minded. They were anxious about the souls of 
the "thoughtless." 

Some ministers changed their views just a little, not enough 
to be driven from their pulpits — but just enough to keep 
sensible people from thinking them idiotic. These preachers 
talked about the "higher criticism" and contended that it 
was not necessary to believe every word in the Bible, that 
some of the miracles might be given up and some of the books 
discarded. But the stupid doctors of divinity had the Bible 
and the creeds on their side and the machinery of the churches 
was in their control. They brought some of the offending 
clergymen to the bar, had them tried for heresy, made some 
recant and closed the mouths of others. Still, it was not easy 
to put the heretics down. The congregations of ministers 
found guilty often followed the shepherds. Heresy grew 
popular, the liberal preachers had good audiences, while the 
orthodox addressed a few bonnets, bibs and benches. 

For many years the pulpit has been losing influence and the 
sacred calling no longer offers a career to young men of talent 
and ambition. 

When people believed in " special providence," they also 
believed that preachers had great influence with God. They 
were regarded as celestial lobbyists and they were respected 
and feared because of their supposed power. 



PREFACE. Xlll 

Now, no one who has the capacity to think, believes in 
special providence. Of course there are some pious imbeciles 
who think that pestilence and famine, cyclone and earthquake, 
flood and fire are the weapons of God, the tools of his trade, 
and that with these weapons, these tools, he kills and starves, 
rends and devours, drowns and burns countless thousands of 
the human race. 

If God governs this world, if he builds and destroys, if back 
of every event is his will, then he is neither good nor wise. 
He is ignorant and malicious. 

A few days ago, in Paris, men and women had gathered 
together in the name of Charity. The building in which they 
were assembled took fire and many of these men and women 
perished in the flames. 

A French priest called this horror an act of God. 

Is it not strange that Christians speak of their God as an 
assassin ? How can they love and worship this monster who 
murders his children? 

Intelligence seems to be leaving the orthodox church. The 
great divines are growing smaller, weaker, day by day. Since 
the death of Henry Ward Beecher no man of genius has stood 
in an orthodox pulpit. The ministers of intelligence are found 
in the liberal churches where they are allowed to express their 
thoughts and preserve their manhood. Some of these preach- 
ers keep their faces toward the East and sincerely welcome the 
light, while their orthodox brethren stand with their backs to 
the sunrise and worship the sunset of the day before. 

During these years of change, of decay and growth, the 
author of this book looked and listened, became familiar with 
the questions raised, the arguments offered and the results 
obtained. For his work a better man could not have been 
found. He has no prejudice, no hatred. He is by nature 



XIV PREFACE. 

candid, conservative, kind and just. He does not attack 
persons. He knows the difference between exchanging epithets 
and thoughts. He gives the facts as they appear to him 
and draws the logical conclusions. He charges and proves 
that Christianity has not always been the friend of morality, of 
civil liberty, of wives and mothers, of free thought and honest 
speech. He shows that intolerance is its nature, that it always 
has, and always will persecute to the extent of its power, and 
that Christianity will always despise the doubter. 

Yet we know that doubt must inhabit every finite mind. We 
know that doubt is as natural as hope, and that man is no more 
responsible for his doubts than for the beating of his heart. 
Every human being, who knows the nature of evidence, the 
limitations of the mind, must have ' ' doubts ' ' about gods and 
devils, about heavens and hells, and must know that there 
is not the slightest evidence tending to show that gods and 
devils ever existed. 

God is a guess. 

An undesigned designer, an uncaused cause, is as incom- 
prehensible to the human mind as a circle without a diameter. 

The dogma of the Trinity multiplies the difficulty by three. 

Theologians do not, and cannot believe that the authority to 
govern comes from the consent of the governed. They regard 
God as the monarch, and themselves as his agents. They 
always have been the enemies of liberty. 

They claim to have a revelation from their God, a revelation 
that is the rightful master of reason. As long as they believe 
this, they must be the enemies of mental freedom. They do 
not ask man to think, but command him to obey. 

If the claims of the theologians are admitted, the church 
becomes the ruler of the world and to support and obey 
priests will be the business of mankind. All these theologians 



PREFACE. XV 

claim to have a revelation from their God and yet they canrtot 
agree as to what the revelation reveals. The other day, 
looking from my window at the bay of New York, I saw many 
vessels going in many directions, and yet all were moved by 
the same wind. The direction in which they were going did 
not depend on the direction of the breeze, but on the set of the 
sails. In this way the same Bible furnishes creeds for all the 
Christian sects. But what would we say if the captains of the 
boats I saw, should each swear that his boat was the only one 
that moved in the same direction the wind was blowing ? 

I agree with Mr. Taber that all religions are founded on 
mistakes, misconceptions and falsehoods and that superstition 
is the warp and woof of every creed. 

This book will do great good. It will furnish arguments and 
facts against the supernatural and absurd. It will drive phan- 
toms from the brain, fear from the heart, and many who read 
these pages will be emancipated, enlightened and ennobled. 

Christianity, with its ignorant and jealous God — its loving 
and revengeful Christ — its childish legends — its grotesque mir- 
acles — its " fall of man" — its atonement — its salvation by faith — 
its heaven for stupidity and its hell for genius, does not and 
cannot satisfy the free brain and the good heart* 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 



CONTENTS. 



Dedication, .... 

Introduction, .... 

Preface by R. G. Ingersoll, 

Christian Civilization and Christian Morality,. 

The Famous Thirty-six Infidels, 

Woman in Christian and Heathen Countries, 

Inspiration, .... 

The Origin of Christianity, 

With or Without Christianity, 

Doubt, 

Can Christians be Just ? 

God, 

Religious Decadence, 

Faith, 

Religion not Morality, 

The Trinity, 

Civil Liberty, 

Miracles, 

Sunday, 

Primitive Christianity, 

Christianity Incongruent, 

Taxation of Church Property, 

Intolerance, 

Religion, 

Religion and Education, 

Mental Emancipation, 

Future Punishment, 

Superstition, 

Church and State, 

Abou Ben Adhem Ingersoll, 

Immortality, 

Liberalized Christianity, 

Prayer, 

In Place of Christianity, 

The Republic in Danger, 

(17) 



i'ag6 

iii 

V 

vii 



8 
16 
29 
40 
5i 
55 
60 

65 
74 
80 
89 
98 
104 

IT2 
122 

131 
144 

155 
166 
l8o 
I92 
20I 
211 
225 
240 

243 
252 

275 
29I 
312 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIAN 
MORALITY. 

WE hear much of Christian civilization and of Christian 
morality ! There is no Christian civilization or 
Christian morality, any more than there is Christian mathe- 
matics or Christian astronomy ; though Christians seem to 
assume that they have a sort of monopoly of civilization and 
of morality, and that (as she is often called) " the great Chris- 
tian nation!" England, is the great exemplar of all that is 
elevating, just and virtuous. What are the facts ? 

Is slavery a civilizing and moral institution ? What is 
England's record in regard to it? Did she not foster the 
slave-trade and was not slavery maintained just so long as it 
was profitable to her? Jefferson, speaking of England's 
encouragement of the slave-trade, said : " This piratical war- 
fare (the opprobrium of infidel powers) is the warfare of the 
Christian king of Great Britain." 

In 1775, Lord Dartmouth (Secretary of State for the Col- 
onies), one of the most conspicuous leaders of the religious 
world, said : ' ' We cannot allow the Colonies to discourage a 
trade so beneficial to the nation." South Carolina, herself, 
among other colonies, remonstrated against the importation 
of slaves, but Acts of Parliament were passed prohibiting the 
state governors from assenting to any measures which should 
tend to restrict the slave-trade. (See Lecky s History.') 

Is it civilizing and moral in its effects, to send rum and 
opium to (what Christian England calls) "the heathen?" 
Canon Farrar says "where the English have converted one Hin- 
doo to Christianity, they have made one hundred drunkards." 

Quoting the above, the Christian at Work adds, "Where 
the English have converted one Chinaman to Christianity they 
hav e made two hundred addicted to the opium habit. ' ' Bishop 

W 



2 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION AND MORALITY. 

Temple, of London, said recently, "Would to God that I 
might stir you all to indignation — fierce and holy — against the 
horrible mischief that English traders do in heathen lands." 

Is robbery civilizing and moral ? 

Benjamin Franklin has said that ' ' a highwayman is as much 
a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single, and a 
nation which makes an unjust war is only a great gang." 
What part of our globe is there where this highwayman of 
nations has not illustrated the robber maxim that ' ' might 
makes right ? ' ' 

Think of the devastations of countries, the destruction of 
property, the despoliation of homes, the sacrifice of life, the 
misery, poverty and tears, the wretchedness and woe, that 
have been caused ; the widows and orphans that have been 
made ; to appease what Theodore Parker has called, ' ' the 
earth hunger of the Anglo-Saxons." 

(The substance of what follows has been largely taken from 
a magazine of a recent year.) Can we mention a single in- 
stance in which England's relations with a weaker government 
have been characterized by that large and even justice which 
distinguishes the philanthropist from the trader ? 

Can we name China? Is it one of the glories of "free 
trade" that is recorded in the histories of the seven years of 
the wars of 1840 and 1857 — of the occupancy of Hong Kong — 
of the forcible introduction into the empire of nine millions 
pounds sterling of opium every year ? 

Is it Spain, whose chief fortress was (in 1704) seized by 
England, at a time when peace existed between the two 
nations, and is retained — John Bright has told us — " contrary 
to every law of morality and honor ? " 

Is it India, of whose patient, dumb and famine-stricken 
people, even the very salt is taxed two thousand per cent., 
that England may prosecute Imperial wars, in which the 
Hindu has no voice ? 

Is it Afghanistan, struggling for its independence in resist- 
ance to what some of the greatest of England's statesmen 
have pronounced an utterly unjust and wicked war ; but whose 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION AND MORALITY. 3 

voices were drowned by the popular clamor of men like Sir 
James Stephenson, who declared that "we are to decide 
according to our own interests ? " 

Is it Zululand, the first step of whose annexation has been 
taken by what has been called an unnecessary and criminal war ? 

Is it the Transvaal, whose Boers saw their cherished inde- 
pendence rudely trampled under foot, when it seemed to 
conflict with English interests ? 

Is it Bulgaria, to the atrocious butchery and outrage of 
whose inhabitants by the Turk, the English ambassador could 
be officially blind for the sake of ' ' English interests ? ' ' 

Is it Cape Colony (seized in 1652) ; Jamaica (in 1665) ; 
Canada (1759) ; Australia (1788) ; Malta (1798)? Is it Cyprus 
— Egypt — Abyssinia — Burmah ? 

All, against the protests of the wisest and noblest of Eng- 
land's heritage of true men, but whose remonstrances were 
powerless against the popular postulatum — as enunciated by 
a leading London newspaper — "the preservation of our rule 
in the highest moral law." 

Besides all which, these immoral, cruel and unjust acts have 
exerted a demoralizing influence upon the English people 
themselves. 

Says Andrew Carnegie, " Governmental interference of a 
so-called civilized power, in the affairs of the most barbarous 
tribe on earth, is injurious to that tribe not only, but never un- 
der any circumstances — can it prove beneficial for the intruder. ' ' 

Benjamin Franklin has expressed the same thought, and 
accounts for this intruder's " deficiency of justice and moral- 
ity" by her " oppressive conduct to her subjects and unjust 
wars on her neighbors ? ' ' 

If the religion which asserts that " nations must answer for 
their sins ' ' be true, then will England have a longer and 
blacker list of crimes to " answer" for than any nation in either 
ancient or modern times, for — as John S. C. Abbot, the his- 
torian, has said — "there is no nation in Christendom whose 
annals are stained with so many acts of unmitigated villainy as 
those of Great Britain." 



THE FAMOUS THIRTY-SIX INFIDELS. 

IN the New York Tribune of November 9th, 1887, appeared a 
report of a sermon preached at Newburgh, by the Reverend 
George Henderson Smyth, minister of the Second Reformed 
Church of this city, in which sermon it was stated that many 
years ago there existed a society of thirty-six Infidels ; that 
on one occasion they baptized a cat and gave communion to 
a dog, and that within a year from that time the entire mem- 
bership of the society was exterminated by death. The report 
added that Grant B. Taylor, Esq. , a lawyer of Newburgh, had 
investigated the statement and found it to be true. 

This was so astounding a recital that I wrote to the last- 
named gentleman, saying that if it was true it ought to be 
spread wide as a warning to " Infidels." If not true, it ought 
promptly to be contradicted, in the interest of truth ; and ask- 
ing him to be kind enough to furnish authority therefor. In 
answer to this he referred me to " The History of Ora?ige 
County , published by Evarts & Peck, of Philadelphia, page 
267, et seq. ; " adding that " Dr. John Johnston's life, therein 
referred to, has a full account of the affair. ' ' 

I also wrote to Rev. G. Henderson Smyth a letter, similar 
to that written to Mr. Taylor, and in answer thereto Mr. Smyth 
referred me to a book called Ad Fidem, written by Rev. E. 
F. Burr, D. D. , on reference to which I find it stated (page 
259) in substance, that of this " Druidical (or Infidel) Society," 
one died a violent death the same day, one was found dead in 
bed the next day, one died in a fit three days after, one was 
frozen to death, two were starved to death, three died ' 'acci- 
dentally," five committed suicide, seven were drowned, seven 
died on the gallows, eight were shot in all thirty -six. 

(4) 



THE FAMOUS THIRTY-SIX INFIDELS. 5 

Dr. Burr adds : "In short, within five years (not one year, 
as Mr. Smyth stated) from the organization of the society, 
every one of the original thirty-six members died in some un- 
natural manner." 

Determining to press my inquiries still further, I wrote to 
the Rev. E. F. Burr, D. D. (at Lyme, Ct.), asking him to 
favor me with the source of his information on this matter. He 
replied that I could find the account in Arvine' s Cyclopedia of 
Moral and Religious Anecdote. 

Referring to this most remarkable collection of miraculous 
events ! I found substantially what Dr. Burr had stated, but 
without quoting a single authority. Rev. Dr. Arvine adds : 
' ' Of the foregoing statement there is good proof ; they have 
been certified before Justices of the Peace in New York ; " but 
the certificates (or affidavits) are (suspiciously) omitted from 
the record. 

I have made every possible effort to ascertain the where- 
abouts — if living — of Dr. Arvine, or some corroboration of 
these extra-natural events, but without success. I have con- 
sulted, I believe, every known historical authority for inform- 
ation and proof of these marvelous statements. 

In Evarts and Peck's History of Orange County, (to which 
Mr. Taylor referred me), a Society of Druids is mentioned, 
but the record is silent as to the amazing circumstances related 
by Mr. Smyth, except what is stated on the authority of Rev. 
Dr. John Johnston, viz : after mentioning the mock com- 
munion incident, Dr. J. is quoted as saying that "the principle 
actor in this impious transaction did not long survive ; on the 
following Sabbath evening he was found convulsed with awful 
spasms, and died without being able to utter a word. (July 
2d, 1799-)" 

Eager' s History of Orange County mentions a Society of 
Druids, but gives no particulars whatever. 

Mr. H. Spencer Clarke, an old resident of Newburgh, to 
whom I wrote for information on the subject says with refer- 
ence to the story, ' ' that any such direful effects ever followed 
is flatly contradicted by several old residents whom I have 



6 THE FAMOUS THIRTY-SIX INFIDELS. 

questioned, and in whose veracity I have the fullest confi- 
dence." Another correspondent at Newburgh, also an old 
resident, and who was personally acquainted with its oldest 
inhabitants, writes : " Rev. Dr. Johnston's account has always 
been criticised, particularly the mock ceremony." 

In Rev. Dr. Wm. B. Sprague's Annals of the American 
Pulpit, is a sketch of Dr. Johnston's life (pp. 396-401), in which 
no allusion is made to these remarkable circumstances. The 
sketch is concluded with a letter (giving recollections of Dr. 
Johnston) by Rev. John Forsyth, D. D., in which the 
" Society of Ancient Druids " is mentioned ; but not a word 
with regard to the untimely end of the thirty-six members of 
the Society, nor indeed of any of them. 

I have also consulted the Autobiography of Rev. fohn 
fohnston, D. D., with an Appendix, by Rev. James Carnahan, 
D. D. (1856) ; but neither furnishes any particulars additional 
to what I have already referred to, nor any authority what- 
ever for what statements are made. 

Ruttenber's History of the Town of Newburgh, gives an 
account of what Rev. Dr. Johnston is quoted as saying, with 
reference to the Druid Society, but does not, by any manner 
of means, present it as " history." On the contrary, in answer 
to a letter I wrote to him on this matter, he says : " My 
examination of the subject, from written and printed evidence 
and conversation with living, impartial actors in the occur- 
rences, led me to assert that the stories told by Dr. Johnston 
et al. , was gossip, almost pure and simple. I traced the deaths 
of several of the most pronounced cases, and found that un- 
natural deaths came to none of them, while others lived to be 
old men. The stories you speak of have been repeated in 
religious circles so long, however, that many will believe them, 
no matter what the denials, and hold up holy hands in horror 
against any denial of a tradition that has religious sanction. 
It is no consequence to me what men may say, or who says it, 
nor what the motives. I know the stories are mostly false 
and wretchedly perverted from the truth." 

Let us analyze Mr. Smyth's story, for the purpose of detect- 
ing what truth, if any, there is in it : 



THE FAMOUS THIRTY-SIX INFIDELS. 7 

Dr. Arvine, from whom (through Dr. Burr) it is admitted 
that Mr. Smyth got it, gives a period of time five times longer 
than does Mr. Smyth. Dr. Johnston (from whom, undoubt- 
edly, Dr. Arvine got it) reports but one unnatural death (if, 
indeed, a person " convulsed with spasms " can be considered 
to have died an " unnatural " death), instead of thirty-six (as 
reported by Dr. Arvine), so that, if we multiply five by thirty- 
six, we have one hundred and eighty showing that there was 
not more than a one hundred and eightieth part of truth in 
the story (a homoeopathic dilution). 

A newspaper, published at Newburgh in the early part of 
this century, called the Recorder of the Times, contains a 
notice of the organization of the "Society of Druids," on 
Sept. 22d, 1803. Dr. Johnston says that the one person con- 
vulsed with spasms, died July 2d, 1799, four years before the 
Society was organized. Besides which is the significant fact 
that Dr. Johnston does not appear to have been at Newburgh, 
or, at all events, it is certain that he did not begin to preach 
there till 1806 — seven years subsequent to the time he , himself, 
states as that when the person was " convulsed with spasms." 

Such is the "truth of history ! " as presented from the 
pulpit. The whole story is unquestionably and simply for 
effect, viz : that of gaining adherents to the gospel of miracle, 
superstition and fear. As further proof of this, I have a letter 
from a member of the church at Newburgh, where Rev. Mr. 
Smyth preached the sermon alluded to, which says: "Mr. 
Smyth has received letters from all points of the compass, and 
seemed rather pleased that the story had been given a fresh 
start, and hoped much good results from it. We have a 
special impression in the church, and a number are joining on 
profession of faith, — thirty-five, I think, from the Sunday- 
school in one day, alone. I think Mr. Smyth's little story is 
some of the cause." 

There are any quantity of just such stories — fables, false- 
hoods — in Arvine 's Cyclopedia of Anecdote ; and any one who 
would enjoy Gulliver or Munchausen, would fairly revel in 
Arvine. sEsops Fables are "sublime truth" in comparison. 



WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN 
COUNTRIES. 

IN turning over the leaves of Colonel Ingersoll's Prose 
Poems on my library table, I found, opposite to his article 
on Woman, a paper on which was written, " In what lands are 
women looked up to, and considered men's equals — Heathen 
or Christian ? ' ' The handwriting- was that of a young lady, 
who had recently been on a visit at my house, and my answer 
to her question was as follows : 

First, let me say of the author of the Prose Poems, that it is, 
in my judgment, no extravagance to say that no man ever lived 
who had a higher appreciation of the character of woman, or 
who has uttered more generous sentiments, more eulogistic 
words, or more beautiful thoughts, or who has interested 
himself more, or done more in defense of every right of 
woman, than has this big-brained, big-hearted and justice- 
loving man, whom the Christian church has traduced, 
slandered, maligned, and against whom she has fulminated 
the most terrible of her anathemas, because he dared to think 
differently from what the Church taught, and because he dared 
to give expression to his honest thoughts. 

To ascertain the cause, or the reason, of the treatment of 

women in Christian lands, we go back to the inspiring cause, 

the authority therefor, viz : the Christian text-book called the 

Holy Bible. Now, what does that teach ? At the outset, I 

am embarrassed by the fact that, in the allusions in this book 

to the subject of your inquiry (regarding woman), my own 

sense of delicacy and fear to bring the blush of shame to your 

cheeks, prevents me from directing your attention to particular 

(8) 



WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 9 

passages in the Bible ; but I can say in general terms, it 
teaches that the husband shall be the ruler, and the wife the 
subject (Gen. iii : 16) ; that a father may sell his daughter ; 
that he may sacrifice her to a mob ; that he may murder her ; 
that maternity is a crime ; that divorce is the privilege of the 
husband only ; that polygamy and the slavery of women is 
justifiable ; that a man not only, may, but shall, "surely kill" 
his wife or daughter, if either endeavor to persuade him to 
"serve other gods ; " and many other outrages in addition, 
which a respect for your sense of modesty forbids my even 
alluding to. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton says : " In binding up the 
Jewish records with the New Testament, under the title of 
'Holy Scriptures,' Christianity indorses the Jewish idea of 
womanhood." 

On the subject of polygamy, Luther said: "I confess for 
my part, that, if a man wishes to marry two or more wives, I 
cannot forbid him ; nor is his Conduct repugnant to Holy 
Scripture." And Mrs. Stanton says: "Many Protestant 
divines wrote in favor of polygamy." 

And what do we find in the New Testament ? Does it teach 
that women should be looked up to, and considered men's 
equals? Far from it. " In that book also," says Helen H. 
Gardener, "the words sister, mother, daughter, wife, are only 
names for degradation and dishonor." (I may here acknowl- 
edge my indebtedness to that gifted woman — Helen H. Gar- 
dener — and to that remarkable work of hers, Men, Women, 
and Gods, for much of the information I am able to furnish on 
the subject of this communication.) 

A few specimens only are necessary to show that the sub- 
jection of woman, and her inferiority to man, is inculcated in 
the New, — as well as the Old, — Testament : 

"Wives submit yourselves to your husbands." "Man is 
the glory of God — but woman is the glory of man." "As the 
Church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their husbands, 
in everything. ' ' 

"They (women) are commanded to be under obedience." 



IO WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 

"Let woman learn in silence, with all subjection." "Ye 
wives be in subjection to your husbands." ' ' If they (women) 
will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home." 

Is it any wonder that women have been treated in the dis- 
graceful manner that they have been in Christian countries, 
when authority is found for it in the book which is the Chris- 
tian' s idea of all that is right? 

In contrast with Paul's instruction to women to ask their 
husbands if they want to know anything, Dr. Livingstone says 
that, ' ' among the intelligent tribes of the Upper Gambia, re- 
spect for women is universally accorded. Many tribes are 
governed by a female chief. If you demand anything of a 
man, the demand is acceded to or rejected, in accordance with 
the decision of the wife, who is always consulted." So that 
there, if a man wants to learn anything, he asks his wife. 

In Miss Amelia B. Edwards' lecture in this city, March 22, 
1890, on the Women of Ancie?it Egypt (many centuries before 
the Christian era), she says that "from the earliest time of 
which we can catch a glimpse, the women of Egypt enjoyed a 
freedom and independence of which modern nations are oyily 
beginning to dream. ' ' 

Mrs. Stanton says: "Through theological superstitions 
woman finds her most grievous bondage. The greatest barrier 
in the way of her elevation, is the perversion of the religious 
element of her nature. ' Thus saith the Lord,' has ever been 
a talisman by which tyrants have held the masses in subjection ; 
and woman, in her unbounded faith, has ever been the surest 
victim. All scriptural lessons teaching the slavery of woman, 
are echoed and re-echoed in every pulpit." 

Principal J. Donaldson, LL. D., of the great Scotch Uni- 
versity of St. Andrews, in a recent number of the Contemporary 
Review, says : " It is a prevalent opinion that woman owes 
her present high position to Christianity. I used to believe in 
this opinion. But in the first three centuries I have not been 
able to see that Christianity had any favorable effect on the 
position of women, but, on the contrary, that it tended to 
lower their character, and contract the range of their activity." 



WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. II 

The "fathers" of the Christian Church, drawing their in- 
spiration, doubtless, from the writings of the Old and New 
Testaments, have given their opinion of woman, which, I 
submit, is not quite as nattering to her as the opinion of some 
who do not believe in the fathers. 

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore says : " The early Church fathers 
denounced women as noxious animals, necessary evils and 
domestic perils," 

Lecky says : ' ' Fierce invectives against the sex form a con- 
spicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the fathers." 

Mrs. Stanton says that holy books and the priesthood teach 
that " woman is the author of sin, who (in collusion with the 
devil) effected the fall of man." 

" Gamble says that " in the fourth century holy men gravely 
argued the question, ' ought women to be called human 
beings ? ' " 

But let the Christian fathers speak for themselves. Tertulian, 
in the following nattering manner, addresses woman : " You 
are the devil's gateway ; the unsealer of the forbidden tree ; 
the first deserter from the divine law. You are she who 
persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to 
attack. You destroyed God's image — man." 

Clement, of Alexandria, says : " It brings shame, to reflect 
of what nature woman is. ' ' 

Gregory Thaumaturgus says : ' ' One man among a thousand 
may be pure ; a woman, never." 

"Woman is the organ of the devil." — St. Bernard. 

" Her voice is the hissing of the serpent." — St. Anthony. 

"Woman is the instrument which the devil uses to ge* 
possession of our souls." — St. Cyprian. 

" Woman is a scorpion." — St. Bonaventura. 

" The gate of the devil, the road of iniquity." — St. Jerome. 

" Woman is a daughter of falsehood, a sentinel of hell : the 
enemy of peace." — St. John Damascene. 

" Of all wild beasts, the most dangerous is woman." — St. 
John Chrysostom. 



12 WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 

' ' Woman has the poison of an asp, the malice of a dragon. ' ' 
— St. Gregory-the-Great ! 

Is it suprising, with such instructions from the fathers, that 
the children of the Christian Church should not " look up to 
women, and consider them men's equals? " 

The following lines of Milton reflect the estimate of woman, 
which the teachings of Christianity had inculcated : 

" Oh, why did God, 
Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven 
With spirits masculine create at last 
This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
Of nature, and not fill the world at once 
With man, as angels, without feminine?" 

It is not possible to find in " heathen lands " more revolting 
expressions than those indicating the estimate of woman, as 
held by the Christian Church, and so it is not surprising that 
ample proof can be adduced of the superior regard in which 
woman was held, by what Christian people call Heathen, or 
Pagan people. 

Lecky, in his European Morals, says : "In the whole feudal 
(Christian) legislation, women were placed in a much lower 
legal position than in the Pagan empire. That generous 
public opinion, which in Pagan Rome had revolted against 
the injustice done to girls, totally disappeared." 

Sir Henry Maine says : " No society, which preserves any 
tincture of Christian institutions, is ever likely to restore to 
married women the personal liberty conferred on them by 
the Roman law." 

The cause of "Woman's Rights" was championed in 
Greece five centuries before Christ. 

Principal Donaldson says : " The entire exclusion of women 
(by Christianity) from every sacred function, stands in strik- 
ing contrast with both heathen and heretical practice. ' ' Again, 
speaking of the respect shown to women in ancient Rome, he 
says : " The same respect was accorded to women by many 
of the heretical Christians." 

W. Matthieu Williams, F. R. A. S., F. C. S., in his narra- 
tive, Through Norway with Ladies, asks the question: "Is 



WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 13 

it because their religion is superior to ours, that the Lapp 
women are better treated, and that their comparative status is 
higher? " 

Helen H. Gardener says: "When the Pagan law recog- 
nized her (the wife) as the equal of her husband, the Church 
discarded that law. ' ' 

Lecky says : ' ' In the legends of early Rome we have ample 
evidence, both of the high moral estimate of women, and of 
their prominence in Roman life. The tragedies of Lucretia 
and of Virginia display a delicacy of honor and a sense of the 
supreme excellence of unsullied purity which no Christian 
nation can surpass." 

Sir Henry Maine, in his Ancient Law, says that "the 
inequality and oppression which related to women disappeared 
from Pagan laws/' and adds, "The consequence was that the 
situation of the Roman female became one of great personal 
and proprietary independence ; but Christianity tended some- 
what, from the very first, to narrow this remarkable liberty." 
He further says that " the jurisconsults of the day contended 
for better laws for wives, but the Church prevailed in most 
instances, and established the most oppressive ones." 

There is no more patent fact in history than that Christianity 
has exerted its influence in favor of inequality and injustice, 
with reference to woman. 

Professor Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, 
gives certain facts as to the outrageous treatment of women 
by Christian men (the clergy included) which it would be 
exceedingly indelicate in me to repeat. 

Moncure D. Conway says: "There is not a more cruel 
chapter in history, than that which records the arrest, by 
Christianity, of the natural growth of European civilization 
regarding women." 

Neander, the Church historian, says : " Christianity dimin- 
ishes the influence of woman." 

Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage says: "It was not until the 
tenth century that a Christian wife of a Christian husband 
acquired the right of eating at the table with him. For many 



14 WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 

hundred years the law bound over to servile labor all unmar- 
ried women between the ages of eleven and forty." 

Lord Brougham says of the common law of England (in its 
application to women) that * ' it is a disgrace to any heathen 
nation." 

Mrs. Livermore says : ' ' The mediaeval Church declared 
women unfit for instruction, and down to the Reformation the 
law proclaimed the wife her husband's creature and slave." 

Herbert Spencer says: " Wives in England were bought 
from the fifth to the eleventh century, and as late as the 
seventeenth century, husbands of decent station were not 
ashamed to beat their wives. Gentlemen ( ! ) arranged parties 
of pleasure for the purpose of seeing wretched women whipped 
at Bridewell. It was not till 1817, that the public whipping 
of women was abolished in England." 

Where, I ask, do these Christian people get their warrant 
for their atrocious treatment of women, but from the Bible 
and from those in authority in the Church ? 

The late Rev. N. A. Staples, in writing to the Rev. Robert 
Collyer, said : " That is a real good point you make about 
woman's treatment in the Bible. I tell you it is a shameful 
book, in some of its chapters on that subject, and the time 
will come when it will be so regarded." 

Martin Luther, Sir Matthew Hale, Richard Baxter, Cotton 
Mather, John Wesley, all contributed to the heartless, fiendish 
persecution of women as witches (not of men as wizards) be- 
cause the "Word of God" said, "Thou shalt not permit a 
witch to live." 

Buckle says : ' ' The severe theology of Paganism despised 
the wretched superstition (the belief in witchcraft.") 

Rev. Thomas C. Williams says : "I need not remind you 
of the moral enormities which have been defended by the 
supposed authority of the Bible ; the burning of witches, the 
subjection of women," etc. 

Not long ago, a firm believer in the complete subjection of 
women, Rev. Knox Little, said ; " No crime which a husband 
can commit, can justify the wife's lack of obedience." 



WOMAN IN CHRISTIAN AND HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 1 5 

I suppose there is no nation in heathendom where there are 
so many wife-beaters, to-day, as in Christian England. 

Not many years ago the daughter of a Christian minister to 
India, who had lived in India from her birth, was on a visit in 
New York, and meeting with a lady who had married an 
Englishman, inquired : " Does your husband beat you ? " and 
on the lady replying, "No, why do you ask?" answered, 
" In India all Englishmen beat their wives." 

In answering the question, "In what lands are women 
looked up to, and considered men's equals — Heathen or 
Christian?" I have simply given what facts I have collected 
relative thereto, and my authorities for those facts, and if they 
are found to differ from what has been supposed to exist, it is 
only the ' ' truth of history ' ' that has made them so to differ. 



INSPIRATION. 

WHAT is the foundation of the Christian religion ? It is 
not, primarily, a belief in Christ, in God, in immor- 
tality. There is a deeper stratum than either of these upon 
which rests the towering structure of Christianity, and that is 
the belief in the inspiration, or infallibility, of the Bible ; for 
the Christian's Christ ; the Christian's God ; the Christian's 
hope of heaven ; the Christian's belief in devils and angels ; 
in a literal hell and in all else that the Bible teaches, are pred- 
icated on the assumption that it (the Bible) is inspired by a 
supreme and infinite intelligence, which Christian conception 
has formulated as a personal God. 

The question naturally arises how does, or can, anyone 
know anything about inspiration ? What is inspiration ? What 
is its process? Rev. J. M. Capes (of the Church of England), 
says: "How can any person know that he was inspired? 
Such knowledge would be impossible. What trait could 
any man possess by which he could distinguish between a 
fancy that arose out of his own head or supernatural informa- 
tion?" 

No one living has had any experience of being inspired and 
there is no reliable evidence that anyone ever lived who was 
inspired, in the sense in which the word is usually understood, 
viz.: that of a supernatural stimulus of the mental faculties. 
A truer view is to regard inspiration as the natural result of 
superior intelligence. Anyone is inspired who inspires. In- 
spiration is the possession of greatness, of genius. Rev. Dr. 



INSPIRATION. 17 

Rylance, in the North American Review for September, 1884, 
says: "Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul, inspired! Socrates, 
Sakya Muni, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, z/winspired ! a 
narrow viezv of the divine spirit's operation in the world of 
moral intelligence and feeling. . . . Words from heathen 
authors have become part of what we hold to be supremely 
inspired Scripture and are themselves, therefore, inspired." 

Rev. Heber Newton says: "There is inspiration, too, in 
other sacred books : other bibles, than ours." 

Rev. J. T. Sutherland, in the Christian Register of July 
21st, 1887, says: " We believe that inspiration is not some- 
thing which can be locked up in writing or confined to any 
age or people; but that now, to-day, and here with us, just 
as truly as in Palestine two or three thousand years ago ; the 
infinite spirit of Wisdom, Truth, Beauty and Love waits to 
come with its inspiration into every receptive mind." 

Every religion has its sacred or inspired book, but it is not 
recognized as such by the believers in any of the other re- 
ligions. The Tripitaka is an inspired book to the faith of the 
Buddhist. The Zend-Avesta to that of the Parsee. The 
Book of Mormon to the Mormons. 

Edward Clodd, in his Childhood of Religion, says : " What 
Christians believe concerning the Bible is believed, in a still 
more intense degree, by the Bramins concerning the Vedas, 
by the Muslims concerning the Koran, and so on." But each 
sneers at the claim of inspiration for the books of the others. 
Orthodox Christianity claims inspiration for the Bible alone 
and yet, as Rev. James Freeman Clarke says: "The Bible 
does not differ from other sacred books in its method of pro- 
duction." John Fiske says : "The Hindoo sacred writings 
contain all the myths and fables found in the Christian Bible." 

Among Christians themselves there exists a wide difference 
of opinion on the question of inspiration of the Bible. And 
who is to decide as to who holds the correct view ? There are 
believers in plenary inspiration ; that every word of the Bible 
is literally true, as does Mr. Moody, who says: "If every 
word between the covers of the Bible is not absolutely true, 



18 INSPIRATION. 

then we had better burn it and build a monument heaven high 
to Voltaire and Paine. ' ' 

Per contra: Rev. Dr. Behrend, in the Forum for June, 
1890, says : " Current orthodoxy does not teach verbal inspi- 
ration." Rev. Dr. W. S. Rainsford says: "Rather than 
believe in the literal truth of the Bible you might better throw 
it out of the window. " (Rev. Theo. Parker did throw the 
Bible on the floor, saying, "If it defends human slavery I cast 
it from me.") 

There are all shades of opinion among Christians on the 
subject of Inspiration. 

Some, while repudiating verbal inspiration, profess to believe 
that in some inexplicable and indefinable way (what they choose 
to call) the ' ' word of God ' ' is inspired. 

There are those who believe that the Bible should contain 
other books, equally inspired, with those now recognized. 

Rev. Geo. P. Fisher, D. D., says : " It must be remembered 
that they themselves (the books of the Bible) allude to lost 
books, which were evidently regarded as of equal authority 
with those in the canon." 

The three great branches of the Christian Church have each 
their own "inspired" book, unrecognized (as a whole) by 
either of the others. 

The Romish Church admits — and the Protestant Church 
rejects — the books of the Apocrypha. 

Great bitterness of feeling grows out of these respective 
claims for inspiration ; as may be illustrated by quoting from 
two religious journals — Roman Catholic and Protestant. The 
former speaks of the English authorized Protestant translation 
as " incorrect and dishonest," and adds "to call that book 
the Bible is utterly absurd and false." 

The Protestant (the Churchman} retorts by speaking of the 

" queer story of the Vulgate and its printers' errors, sanctioned 

by Papal Bull. . . . The barbarous lingo of Douay Jesuits 

. . The Douay version is uncouth . . . It is no 

secret that at the Council of Trent there were no divines of 



INSPIRATION. 19 

sufficient critical skill and historical knowledge to decide the 
question of the canonicity of the sacred books on its merits." 

Among Protestants themselves wide differences of opinion 
have existed as to which were canonical books. Luther re- 
jected the claim of inspiration for many of the Old Testament 
books and for the books of Hebrews, Revelations, Jude and 
James (the latter he tore from his Bible.) In addition to these 
four books, the Second Epistle of Peter and the Second and 
Third Epistles of John were deemed uncanonical by many 
Christians. 

Michaelis hesitates about admitting the inspiration of Mark, 
Luke and the Acts. 

Many Other theologians have expressed more or less doubt 
on the subject of inspiration of the Bible, as a whole. Among 
these may be named Erasmus, Grotius, Archbishops Tillotson 
and Whately, Bishops Warburton, Marsh and Horsley, H. 
Arnold, Messrs. Maurice and Robertson, Charles Kingsley, 
Dean Stanley and Adam Clarke. 

Paley, in his Evidences, says : " To make Christianity an- 
swerable with its life ; for the . . . genuineness of every 
book ; the information, fidelity and judgment of every writer; is 
to bring . . . unnecessary difficulties into the whole system." 

President Potter, of Hobart College, in a recent sermon 
preached in the Church of the Incarnation, in this city, said : 
" Our Church lays down no definite standard as to inspiration ; 
it leaves that largely a matter of individual thought." 

Inspiration is claimed for the original Hebrew and Greek 
writers ; but, says Prof. Briggs, of the Union Theological 
Seminary : " It is sheer assumption to claim that the original 
documents were inerrant." 

Even admitting that the words of the Bible, as originally 
given and in the original language, were inerrent and inspired, 
we are met with an important difficulty in reference to the 
translations. The Bible has been translated and re-translated 
many times ; each time with important changes. 

The Protestant, King James, version took the place of im- 
perfect previous translations ; but this, in turn, is regarded as 



20 INSPIRATION. 

imperfect and is now supplanted by the ' ' New Version ; ' ' but 
which, Rev. Treadwell Walden (in Popular Science Monthly 
for June, 1890), says, " is not a finality, but only tentative to 
to that which shall meet the brave demand of the nineteenth 
century." 

Rev. Dr. Parkhurst (Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church) 
says that, " so far as the inspiration of the Bible goes, it lacks 
that certitude which is claimed for it by those who insist that 
no errors, in translation or otherwise, have crept into it." 

Froude says : ' ' The authority of the translation was the 
first to be shaken ; then variation in the manuscript, destroying 
confidence in the original texts. If the original language was 
miraculously communicated, there was a natural presumption 
that it would be miraculously preserved. As it has not been, 
the inference of doubt extends backward on the inspiration." 

Dr. Schaff (companion to New Version) says : ' ' Inspiration 
was not provided for transcribers, any more than for printers ; 
not for translators, any more than for commentators or 
readers." 

There are more decided and bolder expressions of opinion 
to-day than ever before on this subject of inspiration. 

The Rev. Dr. Wm. Barry, in the Catholic World, says : 
"Methods of arguing in which the inspiration of Scripture 
. . . is taken for granted are simply futile in the eyes of 
a generation that has broken with Church traditions of every 
kind, Catholic or not." 

Rev. D. Wm. H. Ward, of the Indepe?ide?it says: "The 
day of belief in the infallibility of the Bible is past." 

Rev. George W. Buckley (author of Politics and Morals) 
says: "This dogma of the one infallible book is now fast 
losing hold of thinking minds, even in the more conservative 
churches." 

In the Encyclopedia Britannica is an article on the Bible, 
written by a theological professor (Robertson Smith, of Aber- 
deen), of the Free Church (the most conservative branch of 
the Scotch Church), which article is a most radical destruction 
of the popular conception of the Bible. 



INSPIRATION. 21 

Rev. Henry Frank, D. D., of the Independent Congrega- 
tional Church of Jamestown, N. Y., says: "The statement 
that the Bible is an infallible book of divine revelation to 
humanity, an unqualified and absolute guide to faith and 
practice, and the only book in all the world containing a so- 
called revelation, is unhistorical, uncritical and unqualifiedly 
false." 

Can inspiration be properly claimed for a book which con- 
tains such contradictions, inaccuracies and inconsistencies as 
are found in the Bible ? 

Dean Stanley says that the very first two chapters of the 
Bible contradict each other. 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : " What is the argument 
for the verbal infallibility of the Bible ? . . . Not that 
there are no contradictions or errors of language, for these are 
numerous." 

Victor E. Lennstrand (the Swedish martyr to honest 
thought) says : " With regard to the infallibility of the Bible, 
a minister of the Swedish State Church has informed me that 
in this book there have been found no less than 9,000 mis- 
takes in science and double as many in history and chronol- 
ogy. In 1873, Rev. Pumarius Fehr stated in the magazine 
Loesning for Falket that the interpolations and forgeries are 
no fewer than 30,000." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " The inconsistencies, con- 
tradictions, errors and blots irretrievably demolish the super- 
natural idea of the Bible." 

Dr. Schaffsays of the " inconsistencies " of the Bible, that 
they are 
"Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallambrosa." 

Inspiration is claimed for Moses, who was supposed to have 
written the Pentateuch ; but Biblical critics are almost unani- 
mous in the opinion that Moses did not write those books. 

Inspiration is likewise claimed for Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John ; yet most critics assure us that, most probably, no 
persons of those names wrote those books. 



22 INSPIRATION. 

Inspiration is claimed for Paul, as the author of Hebrews, 
and yet Origen says that Paul never wrote that epistle. 

The Truth-Seeker Annual for 1888 says : " Such Christian 
writers as Davidson, Westcott, Oort, Hooykas, Kuen, Evan- 
son, Bauer and Kitto question the ascribed authorship of 
many of the books of the New Testament." Also, " That as 
to the authenticity of Mark, the only testimony is that Euse- 
bius said that Papias said that John (the Presbyter) said that 
Mark wrote down what Peter said that Jesus said." 

Bishop Fanstus declared that " it is certain the New Testa- 
ment was written a long time after Christ, by unknown per- 
sons." 

As to the time when inspiration was claimed for the Bible, 
Rev. J, T. Sutherland says : " The books of the Old Testa- 
ment did not come to be regarded as really sacred much 
before the time of Christ, and for two centuries none of the 
New Testament writings were looked upon as equally 
authoritative with the Old." 

Westcott says : ' ' When Paul spoke of the ' Holy Scrip- 
ture ' he meant exclusively the Old Testament." 

Dr. Davidson places the writings of Matthew at about the 
year 119 ; Luke, Mark and Titus 120 ; John's Epistles 130 ; 
Timothy 140 ; John's Gospel 150 ; Peter 170, and adds : 
" The first instance of the canonization of any of the books of 
the New Testament was about the year 170." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says: "It took the Church 

three centuries to make up its mind what books ought to 
belong to the New Testament." 

In Westbrook's The Bible, Whence and What? it is stated 
" The Councils that accepted the four gospels and seventeen 
epistles as canonical, rejected more than one hundred and fifty 
other gospels and epistles that claimed recognition." 

Mark Hopkins, In his Evidences of Christianity, says that 
the New Testament, "which we now receive, was not, in all 
parts, formally agreed upon till between three and four hun- 
dred years after the birth 'of Christ." 

Dr. Gardner says that " even as late as the sixth century, 



INSPIRATION. 23 

the New Testament canon was not settled by any authority 
that was considered decisive." 

Mosheim says : " As to when or by whom the books of the 
New Testament were collected into one volume, there are 
various conjectures of the learned." 

Max Miiiler says "'Where, when and by whom was the 
Bible written ? ' are questions which have never been satis- 
factorily answered." 

Rev. J. T. Sutherland says the Bible "was written many 
centuries apart, under widely different conditions of civilization, 
by writers widely differing in belief and style." 

Various councils of the Church, often reversing the decisions 
of previous councils on the question as to which were canoni- 
cal writings, were held ; until, in 1546, the Council of Trent 
settled the question for the Romish Church. 

Dr. Schaff says : " What was known as the authorized ver- 
sion, or King James Bible, originated in the Hampton Court 
Conference, in 1604, Dr. Reynolds arguing that there might 
be a new translation of the Bible, such as now are extant being 
corrupt. This (King James) Bible was completed in 161 1, 
and was bitterly opposed by Romanists, Hebraists, Armenians, 
Socinians, Arians, and others." 

In 1647, the Westminster Assembly met and decided for 
the Protestant Church which were "sacred " writings. 

The early Christians' idea of inspiration was a vague one, 
and only such as the authority of the Church permitted. 

The Romish Church, as Prof. Mivart says, still " claims to 
have existed before a line of the New Testament was written, 
to have authority to determine what was or what was not 
canonically inspired." 

With the right of private judgment, claimed by Luther, 
came the comparatively new doctrine of the inspiration or 
infallibility of the Bible itself, or its superiority and authority 
over any church. 

Rev. J. T. Sutherland says : "The doctrine of the infalli- 
bility of the Bible was unknown till the sixteenth century." 
Henry H. Haworth in the London Spectator says : " Before 



24 



INSPIRATION. 



the Reformation the Church was the depository and interpreter 
of truth. After the Reformation it was the Bible and not the 
Church which occupied this position. With the new criterion 
of truth a new theory of inspiration was introduced." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : " The real reason which 
has influenced the Church to invent and maintain the doctrine 
of infallible inspiration is a supposed necessity. Unless the 
Church is infallible, say the Catholics, how can we teach with 
authority? Unless the Bible is infallible, say the Protestants, 
how can it teach with authority?" 

The Romish Church determines the question of inspiration 
(and all other questions) by her Ecumenical Councils. How 
have these councils been conducted ? 

Milman says : "The Councils of the Christian Church have 
been marked by intrigue, injustice and violence." 

Rev. W. H. H. Murray says: "Within the Church were 
held great Councils, packed with partisans, as are our political 
caucuses with us ; and dogmas and doctrines, under which 
Christianity groans to-day, imposed upon the Church by the 
scantiest majorities, through fraud and threat." 

Eutychius, in his account of the Nicene Council, relates that 
"the emperor (Constantine) selected 318 of the 2,048 bishops 
summoned to the Council, and as these 318 were orthodox in 
their belief, the othodox religion came thus to be established." 

It is by such means as these that the doctrine of inspiration 
of the " holy mother church" is established and accepted by 
Roman Catholics. 

How can the Protestant Church establish its claim to any 
inspiration of the Bible itself when it is known that there are 
no autographs of the Bible writings extant ; that there have 
been numberless alterations, omissions and interpolations, from 
time to time ; that there are thousands of contradictions, 
errors, untruths in it, to say nothing of its vulgar, immoral 
recitals ; that it has come down to the Protestant Church from 
the '' Fathers," who, as Scalliger says, " put into their Scrip- 
tures whatever they thought would suit their purpose." 



INSPIRATION. 25 

S. J. Finney says : " All the evidence we have of the credi- 
bility of the Bible is drawn from the Catholic Church " 

Rev. W. H. H. Murray says : "The dogma of the Papal 
Church are no more divergent from the simple truth — as Jesus 
proclaimed it — than are many doctrines held in the past by 
those who protested against the errors of Rome." 

Neander says : " Pious frauds overflowed the Church like a 
flood from the first to the thirteenth century." 

Mosheim says : " The doctrine that it was commendable to 
deceive and lie for the sake of truth and piety spread among 
the Christians of the second century" (when most of the 
books of the New Testament were, doubtless, written.) 

Dr. Hedge, speaking of the time when the books of the 
New Testament were received, says: "It was an age when 
literary honesty was a virtue almost unknown ; when literary 
forgeries were commended ; when transcribers did not scruple 
to alter texts in the interest of personal views or doctrinal 
prepossessions." 

Dr. Temple, Bishop of Exeter, says : " The Bible is handed 
down from age to age and moulded by each in turn." 

Greg, in his Creed of Christendom, says: "The doctrine 
(of inspiration of the Bible) arose not because it was probable, 
but because it was wanted." 

Prof. Swing says : " The Bible has not made religion, but 
religion has made the Bible." 

Rev. W. H. H. Murray, speaking of certain passages in 
the Bible, says, " there is no doubt that they are gross fabri- 
cations, foisted bodily into the Bible." 

The Companion to the Revised New Testament (approved by 
the Revising Committee) says: "We see on what slender 
authority it (the Bible) rests." 

And yet for such writings the Protestant Church claims in- 
fallibility ! As Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " The record 
of a supernatural system should be, like Caesar's wife, above 
suspicion." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : " No Church is infallible ; 
no creed is infallible ; no book is infallible." 



26 INSPIRATION. 

The dogma of the infallibility of a man is no more absurd 
than that of the infallibility of a book. 

Rev. W. H. H. Murray, speaking of those " ancient legends 
which became hardened into modern dogma," says : " They 
are now being relegated to the limbo, unto which are flung 
the cast-off garments of vagabond theories." 

" When I was a child, I spake as a child ; I understood as 
a child ; I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I 
put away childish things." 

We, of mature age, have passed through the impressible 
and credulous days of childhood and have become educated, 
thoughtful, reasoning men and women ; so religion has had 
its stage of infancy, its "childhood hour," its undeveloped, 
unlettered and irrational centuries of " belief by faith ; " but, 
thanks to this cultured, investigating and scientific age, we 
are fast outgrowing childish thoughts and childish beliefs, and 
are now rapidly learning, as Rev. Heber Newton recently 
instructed his congregation, to " submit every article of faith 
to the test of reason." 

The mythical Santa Claus, which is so real and literal to our 
little ones, is left in the nursery as the period of maturity 
approaches, and so the puerile myths and fables of the Garden 
of Eden (as to which Henry Ward Beecher said " there never 
was such a gigantic lie told ") ; of the flood ; of Jonah (which 
Luther characterized as " monstrous") ; of the standing still 
of the sun ; of the turning of water into wine ; of the feeding 
of the five thousand ; of bringing the dead to life, and of the 
resurrection (which, as Rev. W. H. H. Murray says, is a 
dogma " old as the world "), should all be relegated to the 
nursery of past and ignorant ages. 

Rev. Dr. Leonard W. Bacon says : " All history is ' sacred ' 
history." It may with equal truth be said that all genius is 
" inspired." 

No intelligent, fair-minded person can "search the Scrip- 
tures" without being satisfied that they are as human produc- 
tions as are the writings of Homer, Herodotus, Josephus, 
Dante, Shakespeare, Hume or Bancroft. 



INSPIRATION. 27 

Col. Ingersoll (than whom there is no person — be he priest 
or minister — who is better informed as to the history and con- 
tents of the Bible) says : " All that is necessary, as it seems 
to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is 
simply and purely human invention — of barbarous invention — 
is to read it. Read it as you would any other book ; think 
of it as you would any other ; get the bandage of reverence 
from your eyes ; drive from your heart the phantom of fear ; 
push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of super- 
stition ; then read the ' Holy Bible,' and you will be amazed 
that you ever for one moment supposed a being of infinite 
goodness and purity to be the author of such ignorance and 
such atrocity." 

I have not sought so much (as may be noticed) to present 
my own opinions on this matter of inspiration ; not even to 
merely urge the views of those of acknowledged reliability 
(most of whom are Christian writers of eminence, whose 
authority cannot easily be gainsaid by other Christians), but 
rather to place the subject before your readers as an historical 
one ; proving, I think, most conclusively thereby, the falsity 
and absurdity of any claim of inspiration for the Bible. 

It seems incredible that cultured, reasoning people can be- 
lieve in the " inspiration " of such a book ; and inconceivable 
that on such belief could rest (as does) the entire fabric of 
orthodox Christianity. It is incomprehensible that truthful, 
pure-minded persons can respect a book that contains (as it 
undeniably does) more that is false and obscene than any other 
book that is permitted in the sanctuary of our homes. 

Baxter — and many other Christian writers — considered many 
parts of the Bible immoral. 

Bishop Colenso asks the significant question : "Would it 
not be well to eliminate from the Bible whatever is untruthful 
and immoral?" 

Richard B. Westbrook, D. D., LL. B., also asks: "Why 
should we not have a Bible that all can read without shame, 
and the truths of which none can reasonably deny ? " 



28 INSPIRATION. 

Noah Webster says : " Many passages of the Bible are ex- 
pressed in language which decency forbids to be repeated," 

And yet to circulate such a book probably not less than 
twenty millions of dollars, possibly more than double that sum, 
are annually expended by the Christian Church. 

And James Anthony Froude says : ' ' Considering the enor- 
mous and astounding follies which the Bible has been made to 
justify, and which its indiscriminate reading has suggested, and 
that the devil himself (if there be a devil) could not have 
invented an implement more potent to fill the world with lies 
and blood and fury, I think that to send hawkers over the 
world, loaded with copies of this book, scattering it in all 
places, among all persons, is the most culpable folly of which 
it is possible for man to be guilty." 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ORTHODOX clergymen of the Christian Church have 
usually been unwilling to admit certain facts of history, 
fearing, doubtless, that they might tend to lessen confidence 
in the Orthodox Church. One of these facts is that Christi- 
anity is borrowed from the older religions : that it is, in many 
respects, almost an exact copy of previously existing religions, 
or, to say the least, that there is between it and the more 
ancient religions, a most remarkable similitude, agreement or 
coincidence. 

In view of this truth it is gratifying to read from a recent 
number of the New York Observer of "the organization of a 
society for the study of 'comparative religion,'" which the 
writer says is a " field of research which has been much neg- 
lected by Christian scholarship" (!) and that, to so orthodox 
a clergyman as the Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of 
Foreign Missions, Rev. Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, this organiza- 
tion is principally due. The Observer states that " Christian 
apologists " formerly endeavored to show " that the Christian 
religion was unlike all others, both in its essence and require- 
ments, and therefore, could not be referred to that origin;" 
but that a change has taken place ; that " the battle-ground 
of to-day is totally different. Christianity does not now, as 
formerly, deny or ignore these coincidences and resem- 
blances." It asks the question " Do they (these coincidences 
and resemblances) exist ; " and answers, with the admission, 
"Yes, many and marvelous." And of what do these coinci- 
dences and resemblances consist ? The Observer answers : 

(29) 



30 THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

" They consist in ideas, truths, cosmogonies, symbols, feasts 
and festivals," and adds that " ethnological, philological and 
archaeological research has revealed astonishing coincidences 
between the religion of the Bible and other ancient religions." 
These wholesale admissions, coming from so unexpected (so 
orthodox) a quarter, are most noteworthy ; although it is 
simply an historical fact that all, or nearly all, that pertains to 
Christianity is found in earlier religions ; a fact well attested, 
as follows : 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says : ' ' There is in fact, as we now 
see, nothing in the externals of the Christian Church which is 
not a survival from the Churches of Paganism. Tonsured 
head and silvery bells and swinging censer ; Christmas and 
Easter festivals ; Holy Madonna with her child ; the sacra- 
mental use of bread, of water and of wine. The very sign of 
the cross ; are all ancient human institutions, rites and sym- 
bols. . . . Scratch a Christian and you come upon a 
Pagan. Christianity is re-baptized Paganism." 

Rev. M. J. Savage says: " Every rite and symbol of the 
Christian Church may be found in the older religions." 

Peter Eckler (in Gibbon's Christianity ,) says : "There is 
not a rite, ceremony or belief we now practice or profess that 
cannot be traced to its origin in Chaldean idolatry, in Assyrian, 
Egyptian or Roman mythology." 

Judge R. B. Westbrook says : " We find in all scriptures, 
ancient and modern, the same symbols, sacraments and 
ceremonies." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " The great religions of the 
world differ in degree only, not in kind. . . . The holy 
water at the door of a Roman Catholic Church is a survival of 
the lustral water of the Pagan temple ; its censers and tapers 
and votive offerings, of Pagan censers and tapers and votive 
offerings ; " The worship of the Virgin Mary is a survival of 
the worship of Vesta. . . . The conversion of the Roman 
Empire by Christianity was about equally the conversion of 
Christianity by the Roman Empire. The Empire became 
Christian ; Christianity became Pagan." 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 

In Charles B. Waite's History of the Christian Religion, 
we read that " many of the more prominent doctrines of the 
Christian religion, prevailed hundreds and — in some instances 
— thousands of years before Christ. The doctrine of the im- 
maculate conception, of an infant deity, was not uncommon in 
very ancient times. The title of ' Son of God ' was very com- 
mon in very ancient times. The belief in miracles has been 
common in all ages of the world. Resurrection from the dead 
was claimed for Mithras, Quexalcote, Osiris, Christna and 
others. The doctrine of the atonement has, in some forms 
pervaded the religion of all countries. The Trinity was an 
essential feature in the religion of many oriental countries and 
is considered, by Worsely, of very great antiquity. The doc- 
trine of the remission of sins prevailed in India, Persia, and 
China. The doctrines of original sin, fall of man, and endless 
punishment, are all to be found in the religious systems of 
several ancient nations. Sprinkling with water was a religious 
ceremony of much antiquity. The sacrament was practiced 
among the Brahmins, the ancient Mexicans, and was intro- 
duced with the mysteries of Mithras." 

Capt. Robert C. Adams (son of the orthodox Rev. Nehe- 
miah Adams, of Boston), says : "All the doctrines that are 
deemed essential to Christianity are the outgrowth of earlier 
beliefs. . . . In India — 900 B. C. — Christna was born of 
the Virgin Devaki, and — 500 B. C. — Buddha was born of the 
Virgin Maya. In Egypt, Horus and his virgin mother, Isis, 
were worshipped long before the time of Christ. . . . The 
doctrine of the Trinity was held by the Brahmins, who wor- 
shipped Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and by the Buddhists who 
reverenced ' the three pure, precious and honorable Fo. . 
The term logos, or word, was applied to Apollo. 
The Holy Ghost is symbolized by the dove of Venus. 
The sacrament of bread and wine was observed in honor of 
Osiris, the risen God of ancient Egypt ; and of Mithra, the 
Persian Saviour. . . . Baptism was a universal custom, 
Buddhists dipped (three times), and Brahmins sprinkled. 
. . . Confirmation was also practiced by the ancient Per- 



32 THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

sians. . . . The cross is a world-wide symbol of vast 
antiquity. . . ' . I. H. S. was the monogram of Bacchus. 
Festivals to saints and martyrs replaced Pagan 
festivals. . . . Christmas was the birthday of the Gods, 
and was the ancient feast of the sun. . . . Good Friday 
and Easter were observed in honor of Adonis. . . . The 
title ' Mediator ' was applied to Mithra in Persia. . . . 
Atonement was made by animals, men and Gods. . . . 
Regeneration was symbolized by a person passing through 
clefts in rocks, as though born (again) out of the earth. 
. . . The end of the world, the day of judgment and future 
punishment were matters of belief in remote times." 

The author of Bible Myths says: "Every Christian doc- 
trine, rite and symbol can be shown to have pre-existed in 
Pagan usage. . . . Pagan festivals became Christian 
holidays ; Pagan temples became Christian churches. 
The only difference between Christianity and Paganism is that 
Brahma, Ormazd, Osiris, Zeus, Jupiter, etc., are called by 
another name : Christna, Buddha, Bacchus, Adonis, Mithras, 
and others, turned into Jesus ; Venus' pigeon into the Holy 
Ghost ; Diana, Isis, Devaki, and forty-five other virgin 
mothers, into the Virgin Mary ; the demi-gods and heroes of 
ancient times into Christian saints. ' ' 

Judge Richard B. Westbrook, author of The Bible, Whence 
and What, says: "There is scarcely a story or incident re- 
corded, as an historical fact, in the Old Testament, that is not 
evidently founded, in whole, or in part, upon some more 
ancient legends of the East. . . . No fundamental doc- 
trine is taught in either the Old or New Testament that was 
not as distinctly taught centuries before the Hebrew- Egyptian 
Moses or the J udean Jesus were ever heard of, . . . There 
is scarcely a dogma in Christianity which has not its match in 
the more ancient religion of Hindostan. There is not an 
attribute of deity, not a moral principle, not a single duty 
taught in any modern system of theology that has not been as 
truly held by many of the great leaders of the ancient Pagan 
religions. . . . The basic principle of the fall of man and 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 

his recovery are not only similar, but almost identical, in all 
scriptures — Pagan, Jewish and Christian. ... It would 
be easy to furnish a list of scores of Saviours, most of whom 
were subjects of promise and prophecy ; miraculously con- 
ceived ; themselves working miracles ; their destruction sought 
by jealous monarchs ; generally dying for mankind and having 
a triumphant resurrection." 

Canon Freemantle (Fortnightly Review, March, 1887) says : 
"If we fix our minds upon ideas, once thought to be ex- 
clusively Christian, are there not incarnations, miraculous 
births and resurrections in the Brahminical religion ? . . . 
The knowledge of the religions of the East and West show us 
points of the closest analogy with that recorded in the Bible, 
and the question is forced upon us whether there is any line 
to be drawn between them," 

Rev. J. T. Sutherland says : " Sacrificial ideas and ideas of 
atonement came from the religions of the heathen world. The 
rite of baptism, the sacrament, the ideas of immaculate con- 
ception and virgin mothers existed long before the time of 
Christ ; the same rituals, symbols, holy days, miracles and 
incarnations.*' 

Prof. Huxley (in Popular Science Monthly 'for August, 1889) 
says : ' ' There is strong ground for believing that the doctrines 
of the resurrection ; of the last judgment ; of heaven or hell; 
of the hierarchy of good angels ; of Satan and evil spirits, were 
derived from Persian and Babylonian sources and are essen- 
tially of heathen origin." 

T. W. Higginson, in his Sympathy of Religions, says : " In 
these various religions are constantly met the same doctrines 
— regeneration, predestination, atonement, future life, final 
judgment, divine logos, and the Trinity. The same prophe- 
cies and miracles — the dead restored and evil spirits cast out 
— and the same holy-days. . . . Zoroaster, Confucius, 
Osiris and Buddha, have no human father, and between the 
lives of the last two and that of Christ an almost perfect par- 
allel is shown." 

Alex, von Humboldt says of the different religions of the 



34 THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

world: " Each fills some blank space in its creed with the 
name of a different teacher. ' ' 

But little, comparatively, was known until more recent years 
of the so-called sacred books of religions other than Christian. 
To Max M tiller are we much indebted for translations which 
show a remarkable similitude in all religions. In a comparison 
of the Persian and Jewish religions, Prof. Miiller says : "What 
applies to the religion of Moses, applies to that of Zoroaster.*' 
He also shows that in the more ancient religious books are 
found much of what Christianity has claimed as (exclusively) 
her own. Writing of the first three centuries after Christ, 
when Paganism was being absorbed by Christianity, he says : 
" That age was characterized by a spirit of religious syncretism 
— an eager thirst for compromise. . . . Maya and Sophia, 
Mithra and Christ, Virol and Isaiah, were mixed up in one 
jumbled system of inane speculation." 

Mosheim says: "The Christians of the second century 
adopted certain rites and ceremonies employed in what was 
known as the ' Heathen mysteries.' " 

The Outlook, Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., editor says : "Pa- 
gan theories and practice were diffused throughout the (Chris- 
tian) Church." 

Origen (in early part of the third century) said : ' ' Christianity 
and Paganism differ in no essential points, but have a common 
origin, and are really one and the same religion." 

Faustus, writing to Augustine (in the fourth century), says : 
" Nothing distinguishes you from the Pagans except that you 
hold your assemblies apart from them." 

Rev. Aug. Thebaud says : " At the beginning of the sixth 
century Rome was almost entirely Pagan." 

Seymore says : " The principles of Heathen Romanism and 
those of Christian Romanism are ©ne and the same." 

Paganism is the trunk, the tree, the branches, the leaves ; 
Christianity is but the bloom. " Christianity is the flower of 
Paganism," says Rev. R. Heber Newton. 

The resemblance between the legend of a more remote an- 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 

tiquity, with respect to the Saviours of other religions and 
those relating to Christ are most striking. 

Kersey Graves has written the stories of sixteen crucified 
Saviours. 

Justin Martyr, addressing the Emperor Adrian, says : " As 
to Jesus Christ having been born of a virgin, you have your 
Perseus to balance that." 

Rev. S. Eitel — quoted approvingly by Rev. Dr. Kellogg 
(Presbyterian) in Light of Asia and Light of the World — says : 
"With the single exception of Christ's crucifixion, almost 
every characteristic incident in Christ's life is also to be found 
narrated in the traditions of the life of Buddha." 

In an article by T. Bush in the Freethinkers' Magazine for 
September, 1890, a comparison is drawn between the vicarious 
sacrifice of Alcestis (as related by Euripides in the fifth cen- 
tury B. C.) and that of Christ, and says : " Mark the striking 
resemblance of the characteristic features of the two fictions — 
Pagan and Christian. In both there was a death, burial and 
resurrection ; in both a descent into hell ; in both a failure on 
the part of their dearest friends to recognize the victims on 
their return from hell, and lastly no one was allowed to touch 
the resuscitated substitutes until a godly purification had been 
observed." 

Rev. Spence Harvey says : " The resemblance between the 
legend of Maya, the mother of Buddha, and the doctrine of 
the virginity of the mother of Christ, cannot but be marked." 

In Arthur Little's Bjiddhism in Christianity he says : " The 
annunciation in the cases of Maya and Mary are quite similar 
Buddha, like Christ, had twelve disciples, and called 
them with the same words that Christ did, saying, ' Follow 
me.' . . . Buddha, too, had his fasting, baptism and 
temptation. . . . Buddha delivered a sermon on a mount- 
ain and taught in parables. . . . Peter, walking in the 
water, has its counterpart in the life of Buddha. . 
Buddha, Zarathusa and Mahomet were heralded by a star." 

Prof. Rhys Davids says : "A rich young man came by 
night to Buddha." 



36 THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The Abbe Prouveze says: "The points of similarity be- 
tween (Tibetan) Buddhism and Christianity are far too minute 
to do away with the idea of plagiarism." 

In the Truth Seeker for December, 1888, John R. Charles- 
worth gives the Hindoo legend almost identical with that 
with reference to Christ. The Virgin Devanaguy was " over- 
shadowed " by the God Vishnu and gave birth, in a stable, to 
Christna, who the shepherds adored. The reigning tyrant of 
Modura, seeking to destroy Christna, ordered the massacre of 
all male infants. This legend dates back 3,500 B. C. A some- 
what similar legend exists among the Chinese, with reference 
to Buddha and his virgin mother Maya-devi. 

That the sign of the cross, for centuries before the Christian 
era, was in common use the wide world over, and that, there- 
fore, it was not exclusively a symbol of Christianity, is well 
attested. 

"The sign of the cross was in use as an emblem long before 
the Christian era. " {Chamber's Encyclopedia.) 

"We find among ancient nations the cross as one of their 
most cherished symbols." (Dr. Lundy.) 

"The cruciform device occupied a prominent position 
among the many sacred and mystic symbols and figures con- 
nected with the mythologies of heathen antiquity." {Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica.) 

" From the dawn of Paganism in the East to the establish- 
ment of Christianity in the West, the cross was undoubtedly 
one of the commonest and most sacred of symbolical monu- 
ments." (Bishop Colenso.) 

" It is high time that Christians should understand a fact, 
of which skeptics have been long talking and writing, that the 
cross was the central symbol of ancient Paganism." (Rev. A. 
H. Lewis, D. D.) 

The dogma of the Trinity is likewise of Pagan extraction : 

" The doctrine of the Trinity is an Eastern speculation; 
Christianity clothed itself in this ancient garb, ... be- 
traying to him who knows the fabrics of the East, the looms 
of Egypt and India." (Rev. R. Heber Newton.) 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 

"The dogma of the Trinity is Platonic and Egyptian." 
(Rev. Jas. Freeman Clarke.) 

11 We can trace the history of this doctrine (of the Trinity) 
and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in 
the Platonic philosophy." (Rev. Andrews Norton.) 

"Traces of belief in the Trinity are to be found in most 
heathen nations. It is discernible in Persian, Egyptian, Ro- 
man, Japanese and most of the ancient Grecian mythologies and 
is very marked in Hindooism." (Rev. Lyman Abbott.) 

The Trinities of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva ; of Osiris, Isis 
and Horus ; of Odin, Vili and Ve, were believed in centuries 
before the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost was pro- 
mulgated. 

Similitudes, in other respects, between the more ancient 
religions and Christianity are, likewise, simple matters of 
history. 

The story of creation, of the temptation of Adam and Eve, 
of the flood, of the tower of Babel, were told long before a line 
of the Bible was written (see Outlook — July, 1890 — by Rev. 
Dr. Lewis.) 

" The Greeks, Romans and Hindoos used the same words 
as those which commence (what is called) ' the Lord's prayer' 
and which is found in almost identical language in the Jewish 
Kadish." (Judge R. B. Westbrook, of Phila.) 

"There exists not a people, whether Greek, barbarian, or 
any other race, among whom prayers are not offered up in 
the name of a crucified Saviour." (A Church Father.) 

The origin of the Christian gospels and doctrines are shown 
to be from Egyptian and other Oriental sources, in Diegesis 
by Rev. Robert Taylor. 

What the Christian conceives to be God is similar to the 
Hindoo conception of Brahma, the Greek conception of Zeus 
or the Roman conception of Jupiter. 

" A local heaven and a local hell are found in every my- 
thology." (Prof. John W. Draper.) 

" The essence of the Christian religion is the center dogma 
of Buddhism." (Schopenhauer.) 



38 THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In every phase of this question we discover that the Chris- 
tian religion is, indeed, almost an exact copy of earlier religions 
and mythologies. 

Peter Eckler, in his notes on Gibbon' s Christianity , says : 
' ' The similarity between the Pagan and Hebrew belief is appar- 
ent. . . . The miracles performed by Jews and Egyptians were 
precisely the same. . . . The Roman Hercules was called 
a Saviour of mankind, born of a human mother and an immortal 
father. The same was also claimed for the Indian Chrishna, 
the Egyptian Osiris and the Grecian Apollo." 

The marvelous stories connected with the lives and times of 
Joshua, Balaam and Moses are evident derivations from the 
myths of more ancient times. 

A. L. Rawson, in the Freethinker 's Magazine for March, 
1888, says: "We read in the Iliad, of Juno hastening the 
sunset and of making a horse speak, and of Jupiter turning a 
serpent into stone. In the Odyssey, of Minerva retarding the 
sunrise and as transforming Odysseus. Calisthenes (quoted 
by Josephus) wrote that in the Pamphylian sea a passage for 
Alexander the Great's army was opened, the waters rising and 
doing homage to him as a king." 

The late D. M. Bennett said, that ''the Christian religion is 
made up from religious systems which existed many centuries 
prior to it. In every essential particular it is mere plagiarism ; 
a reconstruction of the dogmas and superstitions of older 
heathen nations." 

The Truth Seeker says that Mr. Bennett traced forty events, 
traditions, ceremonies and dogmas, now regarded as Christian, 
to pre-existing religions. 

Thus it would seem that the Christian religion has become 
heir to all the myths, mysteries, mythologies, dogmas, doc- 
trines, legends, fables, traditions, superstitions, miracles, rites, 
ceremonies, sacraments and symbols of the older religions. 
Even the moral precepts of Christ were the utterances of 
Buddha, of Confucius and other religious teachers, centuries 
before the Christian era. As A. C. Bowen, in the North 
American Review for March, 1887, says: "Much of the 



THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 



39 



ethical greatness and sweetness which we, in our bigotry, 
thought to belong to Christianity alone, has lived for centuries 
in the religions of the East." 

Renan says : "Nearly everything in Christianity is mere 
baggage brought from the Pagan mysteries." 

Col. Ingersoll says of Christianity, that it " administered on 
the estate of Paganism and appropriated most of the property 
to its own use." Again he says: "The grave clothes of 
Paganism became the swaddling wraps of Christianity." 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

1HAVE been asked the question: "Would the world be 
better off with or without Christianity." My answer was 
"without," and was made advisedly ; after bestowing a great 
deal of thought upon, and many years of study of, the subject. 

It is but historical truth that Christianity has discouraged 
learning, antagonized science and retarded civilization ; that 
it has instigated fear, incited persecution and encouraged war ; 
that it has stirred up jealousy, enmity and strife ; that it has 
been the prop of thrones, the friend of despotism, the enemy 
of liberty ; that it substitutes faith for reason, legend for fact, 
tradition for history, fable for truth ; that it would punish 
honest thought with never ending torture, and reward dis- 
honest belief with eternal bliss ; that it has shown itself to be 
ignorant, credulous, superstitious, bigoted, arrogant, irrational, 
unjust, tyrannical, pharisaical, cruel and immoral ; that it 
falsely assumes to possess the only true system by which up- 
rightness of character and moral conduct are inculcated and 
attained ; and that it erroneously claims to have established 
the only institutions of a beneficent character that have existed. 

I propose to call as witnesses, in proof of what I say, those 
whose character, ability and truthfulness cannot be gainsaid. 

There is no doubt of the fact that from the fourth century — 
when Christianity first became a power in the world, under the 
leadership of one of the most blood-thirsty monarchs who ever 
ruled in Rome, the great Christian Emperor Constantine — 
down to the fourteenth century, a period of a thousand years, 
known as the dark and the middle ages ; the light of intelli- 
gence became almost extinct. 

(40) 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 41 

It is but historical truth that this "light of intelligence " 
was not revived except under the auspices of a rival religion. 

Let Lecky be my first witness. He says : " Not till Mo- 
hammedan science and classical free thought and industrial 
independence broke the sceptre of the (Christian) Church did 
the intellectual revival of Europe begin. , . . Decadence 
of theological influence has been one of the most invariable 
signs and measures of our progress. . . . The Church 
has uniformly betrayed and trampled on the liberties of the 
people. She has invariably cast her lot into the scale of 
tyranny." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke speaks of "that prodigious 
development of art, science and literature which followed the 
conquests of the Saracens." 

In Rees. Cyclopedia we read : " It was in a great measure 
owing to the light of learning and science which shone in 
Arabia that the whole earth was not at this time (about the 
year 1,000) overwhelmed with intellectual darkness." 

Canon Isaac Taylor said recently that " Islamism has done 
more ior civilization than Christianity has done or can do." 

Buckle says : "In the sixth century the Christians succeeded 
in cutting off the last ray of knowledge and shutting up the 
schools of Greece. Then followed a long period of theology, 
ignorance and vice. . . . To assert that Christianity com- 
municated to man moral truths, previously unknown, argues 
gross ignorance or willful fraud." 

Prof. Draper says : "The history of science is the narrative 
of two contending powers ; the expansive force of the human 
intellect on the one side and the compression arising from 
traditionary faith on the other. . . . In 1,200 years when 
Christianity dominated the civilized world, the Church had not 
made a single discovery that advanced the cause of humanity 
or ameliorated the condition of mankind." 

Guizot says: "When any step was taken to establish a 
system of permanent institutions which might effectually pro- 
tect liberty from the invasions of power in general, the Church 
always ranged herself on the side of despotism." 



42 WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

Macauley says: "The Church of England continued for 
150 years to be the servile handmaid of monarchy ; the steady 
enemy of public liberty." 

M. Richard, M. P., said : " Almost always the voice of the 
Church has been for war." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " War has been the favorite 
trade of Christians from the time of Jesus until now." 

" Priests, pale with vigils, in Christ's name have blessed 
The unsheathed sword." — (Whittier.) 

' 1 1 come not to bring peace, but a sword, ' ' is the authority. 

John Bright has said that " the bishops of the Church of 
England have seldom aided legislation in the interest of 
humanity." 

William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., says : " Human progress has 
always been advanced by the few laborers outside the Church, 
than by the many professors within it. ' ' 

Mrs. Besant says : "Christianity set itself against all popu- 
lar advancement ; all civil and social progress ; all improve- 
ment in the condition of the masses. While it reigned 
supreme, Europe lay in chains ; and even into the new world 
it carried the fetters of the old." 

Prof. Felix L. Oswald says: "The history of Christian 
dogmatism is the history of over 1,800 years of war against 
nature and truth." 

Robert C. Adams says : " Almost every scientific advance 
or social reform has been opposed by Christians." 

"The author of Supernatural Religion says: "It is an 
undoubted fact that wherever . . . dogmatic theology 
has been dominant, civilization has declined. / 

In the sixteenth century the Bishop of London said : "We 
must in some way destroy this infernal art (printing) or it will 
some day destroy us ! " 

John Stewart Mill says : " Who can estimate what the world 
loses in the bright intellects who cower before popular preju- 
dice." 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 43 

Condercet says : ' ' The triumph of Christianity was the first 
signal of the decline of sciences and of philosophy." 

Fuerbach says : " The decline of culture was identical with 
the victory of Christianity." 

Lange says : " Education and enlightenment, as a rule, go 
hand in hand with the decrease of the clergy." 

Winwood Reade (nephew of Charles Reade and author of 
the Martyrdom of Man) says : " I am firmly persuaded that 
whatever is injurious to the intellect is also injurious to moral 
life ; and on this conviction I base my conduct with respect to 
Christianity ; that religion is pernicious to the intellect. . . . 
The destruction of Christianity is essential to the interests of 
civilization. ' ' 

The murder of Hypatia is a specimen estimate of how both 
women and learning were held in the eyes of Christians in the 
fifth century. 

The leaders of the Reformation likewise displayed great ani- 
mosity to philosophy and science. And even to-day in both 
Roman Catholic and Protestant churches science is treated as 
heretical. 

Rev. Dr. Rylance (Protestant Episcopal) is frank enough 
to admit that " the attitude of our Church authorities toward 
modern science is far from friendly." 

Protestants are usually apt to speak as though it is the 
Romish Church alone which has been and is a hindrance to 
scientific study. Lyell, in his Principle of Geology, says that 
11 the theological war upon the true scientific method in geol- 
ogy was waged more fiercely in Protestant than in Catholic 
countries." 

Hon. Andrew D. White says: "The warfare of religion 
against science is to be guarded against in Protestant countries 
not less than in Catholic." He tells us that while it is true 
that the Copernican theory was not permitted to be taught by 
the authorities at Rome until the early part of this century, 
and that while the Church universities of every great Catholic 
country of Europe concealed the discovery of spots on the 
sun, and excluded the Newtonian demonstrations, it is also 



44 WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

true that ' ' the two great universities of Protestant England, 
and nearly all her intermediate colleges, under clerical super- 
vision, have excluded the natural and physical sciences as far 
as possible. . . . From probably nine-tenths of the uni- 
versities and colleges of the United States, the students are 
graduated with either no knowledge, or with clerically emas- 
culated knowledge, of the most careful modern thought on the 
most important problems in the various sciences, in history 
and in criticism." 

The Church has successively taught that the earth was flat ; 
that it was the center of our solar system ; that it was but a 
few thousand years old ; that the astronomy, geology and 
biology of to-day were unscriptural and therefore untrue. But 
scientific truth is forcing its penetrating light into the dark and 
cheerless abodes of theology and commanding the respect of, 
at least, some of the clergy. 

In the Popular Science Monthly for October, 1880, we 
read : ' ' Archbishop Whateley used to say that the attitude of 
the clergy to new scientific doctrines was marked by three 
definite stages. At first they say it is ' ridiculous,' then that 
it is contradicted by the Bible, lastly, ' we always believed it. ' " 

The Truth Seeker of Sept. 13, 1890, says: "The Church 
has been the greatest drag upon the world, keeping it back 
as long as she was able and then when anything has been 
accomplished in spite of her, she has claimed the credit." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: "The sun of truth was 
well up towards its meridan splendor ere theology gathered 
her courtiers about her, and in her most impressive manner 
said : ' Now rise.' " 

The persecutions and murders for opinion's sake have no 
parallel in the history of any otner than the Christian religion. 

Think of just this single fact : that the Calvinistic Church 
is founded upon the tenets of one who instigated the torture 
and death of the Martyr Servetus for the crime (!) of trans- 
posing two words, viz., that the victim of this barbarism had 
spoken of Christ as the "son of the living God." instead of 
"the living son of God." Truly has Archdeacon Farrar 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 45 

characterized Calvinism as having " exhibited an intolerance 
which has doomed its dogmas to the abhorrence of mankind." 

Did the flames which wrapt the tortured bodies of the victims 
of Christian cruelty at Rome, at Seville, at Smithfield, at 
Geneva and at Salem, exemplify the religion of kindness, of 
compassion and of love?" 

A recent writer says: "History shows that religion has 
been more relentless under the auspices of the Christian the- 
ology than under those of all the other theologies of the 
world combined. . . . It is the only fiend in the universe 
cruel enough to burn a man to death, by slow fire, for merely 
holding an opinion." 

It is estimated that nine millions of people suffered martyr- 
dom because of the one verse in the Bible, "Thou shalt not 
permit a witch to live." 

The Christians put to death nearly twenty millions of their 
fellow-beings in the fanatical days of the Crusades, and prob- 
ably, from that day to this, not less than fifty millions more 
have been sacrificed in answer to the requirements of another 
Bible text : " Those mine enemies who will not that I shall 
rule over them, bring hither and slay before me." (Luke 
xix., 27.) 

How encouraging to the patriots of our revolution, and to 
those in other lands who have struggled against oppression, to 
read that " the powers that be are ordained of God ; whoever 
resisteth the power shall receive to themselves damnation." 

The Church was almost a unit in sustaining slavery. The 
return of the fugitive Onesimus by Paul to Philomon was 
regarded as sufficient authority among Christians for the 
enactment of the " Fugitive Slave Law." 

Is it conducive to the spread of truth that in every Sunday 
school, Bible class and church it is taught that to Christianity 
we are indebted for the spread of civilization, learning, science 
and ethics ; when impartial history is most emphatic in pro- 
claiming the falsity of such teachings. 

Is the incentive to do right more noble when stimulated by 
hope of reward and fear of punishment, as taught by Chris- 



46 WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

tianity ; or by the principle of doing right because it is right 
to do right? 

Mr. Chauncey M. Depew has said : "The religion of my 
mother is good enough for me." 

Think of so brilliant an intellect positively refusing to enter- 
tain a thought on theology beyond that he learned on his 
mother's knee. Is such a forced condition of mental inertia 
conducive to intellectual progress ? Had Luther said that the 
religion of his (Roman Catholic) mother was good enough for 
him, where would have been the Reformation ? Had Christ 
contented himself with the religion of his (Jewish) mother, 
there would have been no Christianity ! 

How cheering to the home circle, the admonition, "Woe 
unto you that laugh." 

Various texts from the Bible have ever been the justification 
of the Christian Church for the inculcation of its lessons of 
woman's inferiority, for demanding her uncomplaining sub- 
jection to man. " He shall rule over thee," is the lesson to 
every wife from all Orthodox pulpits. 

Think of the severing of family ties in the name of the 
Christian religion, for voluntary incarceration in nunneries and 
monasteries ; for some idea of the immoralities practiced in 
which, see Robertson's Charles V. 

How encouraging to morality the saying of Luther, that 
' ' men can commit adultery and murder a thousand times a 
day without imperiling their salvation, if they only believe 
enough on Christ." 

Have the morals of the people been improved by Bible 
reading? 

Rev. T. C. Williams says : "I need not remind you of the 
moral enormities which have been defended by the supposed 
authority of the Bible." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : "What shall I say of the 
morals of the Penteteuch ; of its God who bids men steal and 
kill ; of Deborah's thrilling song, exulting over falsehood and 
treachery ; of the gross lasciviousness of the Song of Songs ? ' ' 

Rev. J. S. Richardson (a Church of England Bishop,) 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 47 

alluding to the Old Testament, says : " It is no longer honest 
to deny that it was somewhat mistaken in its science, inaccu- 
rate in its history, and accommodating in its morality." 

Frederick May Holland says: "Voltaire was much less 
shocked by the absurdities in the Bible than by the immor- 
alities." 

Is it elevating to character to listen to pulpit instructions 
about the God of the Bible, who is there represented as a 
being capricious and unstable ; as now hating and again lov- 
ing ; as now chastening and again indulging ; as now per- 
mitting ill and again punishing it ; as foreseeing guilt and 
acquiescing in it ; as issuing edicts and reversing them ; as 
giving favors and revoking them, and as being appeased by 
servility? (See Vohiey s Ruins, p. 84.) 

Beecher said: "The God of the Bible is a moral mon- 
strosity." 

"The God men make for men — 

A God impossible to common sense." 

Is the world made better for belief in the Bible with its 
incredible stories ; its teachings with regard to polygamy, 
slavery, intemperance and deception ; its obscene recitals ; its 
records of wars on unoffending neighbors; of the destruction 
of the lives of men, married women and children, and of the 
capture (for the soldiery) of the maidens ? 

What shall be thought of a religion which invades the 
sanctity of home, and says that it has " come to set a man at 
variance against his father, and the daughter against her 
mother;" that demands that " the brother shall betray the 
brother to death and the father the son ; " that makes impera- 
tive the hating of father, mother, brother and sister? 

How many thousands of emotional beings have become 
demented in their anxiety about their " soul's salvation," by 
reason of the fearful pictures of unending torment which the 
clergy present in such glowing colors? 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: " Ignorance and super- 
stition are the principal ingredients of revivals of religion. 



48 WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

. The average revival of religion must reckon hundreds 
of thousands of shattered intellects." 

Day after day we read of the deaths of fanatics who refuse 
the customary methods of healing the sick because of the 
Christian injunction, " If any is sick among you let him call 
for the elders of the church, and the prayer of faith shall save 
the sick." 

What virtuous principle is encouraged by the text : ' ' The 
Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy 
servants ? ' ' 

" Be not wise above that which is written," is the advice 
which Christianity offered to Copernicus, to Columbus, to 
Newton, to Fulton, to Morse, and to Darwin. 

Is it promotive of civilization, of humanity, of justice, or of 
truth, that is inculcated when nearly every murderer, under 
the sanctifying processes administered by their attending 
priests and ministers, goes direct from the scaffold to ' ' Abra- 
ham' s bosom," while the victim in nearly every instance goes 
equally direct, to the embrace of the eternally damned? 

The fanning mill, the census, life insurance, railways, tele- 
graphy, biology, geography, agriculture, medicine, surgery, 
all have been denounced by the Christian Church as " heralds 
of anti-Christ," or as "shameful theories." (See Truth 
Seeker, Sept. 13, '90 

The Church has claimed superiority for what they call 
" Christian Ethics." There is abundant testimony in refuta- 
tion of such claim. I will content myself by referring the 
reader to but one and that to thoroughly Orthodox authority, 
viz.: to Rev. E. H. Burr, D. D., in his Universal Beliefs, 
pp. 243 and 249. 

The Christian Church claims that it alo?ie has made pro- 
vision for those whose physical and mental infirmities have 
rendered them a care on the more favored. 

Is this true ? 

M. Bosworth Smith, M. A., of Trinity College, Oxford, 
says: " Hospitals a-re the direct outcome of Buddhism and 
lunatic asylums are the result of Mohammedan influence." 



WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 49 

Emily Adams, in the New Ideal, informs us that dispen- 
saries were in existence in the fourth century, B. C, in India, 
and in the fifth century, B. C, in Athens. That the Egyp- 
tians and Greeks — prior to the Christian era — provided for 
the insane. That the Mohammedans built insane asylums in 
seventh century ; while the first Christian asylum for the 
insane was built in 1409. 

Lecky says : " The Mohammedans preceded the Christians 
in the establishment of lunatic asylums." 

Judge Richard B. Westbrook, of Philadelphia, says : " Four 
hundred years B. C, an emperor of India established hospitals 
throughout his empire. Ancient Greece had many charitable 
institutions. Even hospitals for the lower animals existed 
among the pagans." 

Hon. Andrew D. White says : "In the fifteenth and eight- 
eenth centuries the Arabs and Turks made a large and merciful 
provision for lunatics. . . . The Moslem treatment of the 
insane has been infinitely more merciful than the system 
universal throughout Christendom." 

In view of the facts here presented, and of many more of a 
similar character which could be added, if space permitted, am 
I not justified in assuming that the world would have been 
better off" without — than with — Christianity? 

I have not a word to utter against the many truly estimable 
i?idividuals, who are component parts of the Christian Church ; 
but, as a system, I regard it as most pernicious. 

When I speak of Christianity, it is not with any disrespect 
for the character of Christ ; for I yield to no one in admiration 
of the lofty purposes which were the guiding principle of his 
pure and gentle and altruistic life. 

The Christianity of the Church is just what its priests and 
ministers have made it. 

The religion of Augustine, of Thomas Aquinas, of Calvin, 
of Johnathan Edwards, of Spurgeon, and of T. Dewitt Tal- 
mage, is by no means the religion of Christ. 

The former has no more resemblance to the latter than 
ostentation, arrogance, bigotry, hypocrisy, fear and hate have 



5<D WITH OR WITHOUT CHRISTIANITY. 

to simplicity, meekness, charitableness, ingenuousness, confi- 
dence and love. 

Greg, in his Creed of Christendom, says : " Popular Chris- 
tianity is not the religion of Jesus." 

In the Arena for July last, is an article by Rev. Carlos 
Martyn, D. D., called Ckurck -mnity vs. Ckrist-ianity, in which 
he says of the former : * ' It is like counterfeit coin ; current, 
but false. ... It puts the emphasis on belief, when it 
should put it on conduct. ... It builds cathedrals, not 
men. . . . Religion is transformed from a principle into 
an institution. . . . We look for Christ and find a church. 
. . Phariseeism is resurrected and baptized with a Chris- 
tian name. . . . Churchianity has been the resolute op- 
poser of every single forward step." 

The religion of Christ is that simple, "pure religion and 
undefiled " (described in the Epistle of James ; ) the only two 
characteristics or requirements of which are the doing of 
beneficent deeds and the living of an " unspotted " life. 



DOUBT. 

IN the New York Observer recently appeared an article from 
the pen of Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D. D., entitled 
Religious Doubt and the Remedy. 

The thought that first occurred to my mind, in reading the 
article, was, why seek a " remedy " for doubt, any more than 
for any other function of the brain ? Certainly no Protestant 
(Dr. Chambers, for example) can, with any consistency, seek 
for a remedy for the privilege of doubting, unless he denies 
(as does the Roman Catholic Church) the right of private 
judgment ; which right Protestants have ever claimed as the 
main and most distinguishing feature of the difference between 
their and the Romish Church. 

What is embraced in the exercise of the right of private 
judgment ? Certainly the right to doubt is, for you cannot 
be said to exercise the right of private judgment without 
doubting whatever your private judgment thinks proper to 
question. 

The Romish Church is perfectly consistent and honest, and 
the Protestant Church inconsistent and dishonest, on this 
question. 

The dilemma in which the Protestant Church finds itself 
may be illustrated by quoting from Rev. George Armstrong, 
of the Church of England, viz : 

" If I deny the right of private judgment, the Church calls 
me a Romanist ; if I acknowledge it, she brands me as a 
heretic." 

What would be the effect if Dr. Chambers should succeed 
in finding a remedy for doubt? Why, all progress in the 
realm of thought would be arrested. 

What has doubt done for religion ? Had it not been for 
the doubt of Luther, there had been no Protestant Church. 

(5i) 



52 DOUBT. 

Had it not been for the doubt of Christ, there had been no 
Christianity. 

What ought to be thought of a religion, the first lesson in 
which is that you must not doubt ? 

Dr. Chambers does not practice what he preaches. He 
was a member of the commission which brought the new 
version of the Bible into being. What suggested this new 
version, if not the doubt of Dr. C. and his associates as to the 
incorrectness of the King James version? 

But why this clerical war upon doubt — upon religous doubt? 
Simply because doubt is the beginning of reason, and because 
reason is certain annihilation to theology. See what these 
small beginnings of doubt are doing in all Protestant Churches. 
Is it anything but reason, induced by doubt, that is making 
such inroads into the creeds and beliefs of the hitherto Ortho- 
dox Churches ? 

The religious beliefs of to-day are totally different from 
what they were a generation ago. Who (excepting Spur- 
geon, De Witt Talmage and Col. Elliot F. Shepard) believes, 
now, in a literal hell? Who believes in the six days, of 
twenty-four hours each, story of creation ; in the ' ' fall of 
man" (now that science has demonstrated the rise of man 
from lower orders of beings?) Who believes, literally, in 
the stories of Jonah, of Joshua, of Elisha, etc.? What, but 
doubt, has wrought this change ? What, but the workings of 
doubt in the minds of ecclesiastics themselves, has induced 
the liberal thought which we now so frequently hear from the 
clergy ? Read the utterances of Rev. Dr. Briggs, in his 
recent address before the students of the Union Theological 
Seminary ; every liberal saying in which was applauded to the 
echo. " I rejoice at this age of rationalism, with all its won- 
derful achievements in philosophy," says Dr. Briggs. 

Rev. Phillips Brooks says: "The minister should be the 
model of tolerance of what is honest doubt," 

Rev. Dr. Rylance says he regards "doubt as a rational 
thing ; a fact to be dealt with rationally, not professionally or 
by anathema. . . . The rationalist, agnostic and material- 



DOUBT. 53 

ist, have done good, and have reacted on theology in a 
healthful way. ' ' 

Archbishop Leighton has said : ' ' Never be afraid to doubt. 
. . . Doubt, in order that you may end in believing." 

And what has doubt done for science ? Has it not insti- 
tuted a truer system of thought ? Has it not given us Coper- 
nicus, Bruno, Newton, Kepler, Humboldt, Darwin and 
Haeckel ; whose brilliant discoveries would have been hid from 
the world had doubt been silenced ? 

It is doubt that has done the intelligent and beneficial serv- 
ice of transforming alchemy into chemistry ; astrology into 
astronomy ; fiat strata into geology ; the biblical origin of 
man into biology ; the confusion of tongues into philology ; 
superstition into philosophy ; tradition into history ; myth 
into reality ; legend into verity ; fable into truth ; arrogant 
dogmatism into unpretentious agnosticism ; comatose credulity 
into vitalized thought ; unquestioning faith into the spirit of 
inquiry ; demoniacal possession into dementia ; a personal 
devil into an impersonal evil influence ; the capricious gods of 
old into the immutable laws of nature ; creation into evolution. 

" Doubt is the first step to mental liberty." 

11 From the first doubt man has continued to advance." — 
(Tngersoll.) 

•'The act of doubting is the necessary antecedent to all 
progress. " — (Buckle.) 

" Doubt is the mother of inquiry. " 

" A man's doubts are the children of his brain." — (H. O. 
Pentecost.) They are the offspring of mental activity ; would 
it not be unnatural to devitalize the progeny ? 

" Each one's prerogative 'tis to doubt : 

' How do you know? ' is truth's own scout." 

"With knowledge doubt increases." — (Goethe.) 

" Tf thou hast honest doubts, 

Conceal them not ; 
For doubt is better than dishonesty." — (Shakespeare.) 

" There lives more faith in honest doubt 

(Believe me) than in half the creeds." — (Tennyson.) 



54 DOUBT. 

Doubt of what we do not know to be truth, is the prompt- 
ings of our highest intellectual and moral nature. 

Doubt is a sentinel on the watch-tower of the brain, charged 
with the duty of sounding an alarm, whenever its enemies — 
superstition, falsehood, ignorance and unreason — attempt to 
invade the citadel of truth. 

Doubt is the herald of progress ; the genius of reason ; the 
pathway to truth ; the advance guard in the contest with in- 
tellectual darkness. 



CAN CHRISTIANS BE JUST? 

IN the February number of the North American Review is an 
article entitled Ca?i Lawyers be Honest? That interroga- 
tory has suggested the caption to this article, and it seems a 
pertinent inquiry in view of the fact that my observations have 
led me to believe that Christians are, as a class, more or less 
unjust (consciously or unconsciously) to those who differ from 
them in opinion. 

Let me ask the question, can Christians be just who, while 
insisting that there should be no connection of the Church 
with the State, are opposed to laws which could make the 
separation of Church and State a fact as well as a theory ? 

How few Christians there are who favor equal taxation of 
church property, non-sectarian public schools, discontinuance 
of chaplains, repeal of laws making Sunday a religious day, 
cessation of the appointment of days for religious observance, 
no appropriation for sectarian purposes — every one of which 
are questions involving the principle of equal rights and exact 
justice to every citizen. 

Is it just that those who do not believe in the religion of the 
Church are compelled, indirectly, to support such churches 
by reason of their exemption from the operation of the tax 
law, the effect being precisely the same as though non-church- 
goers were compelled to contribute directly to such support? 

Again. Is it just (as James Parton has expressed it) to tax 
a workingman's house to its full value and let a million-dollar 
cathedral or church go untaxed ? 

(55) 



56 CAN CHRISTIANS BE JUST? 

Is it just that appropriations for religious institutions are 
annually made by our legislatures in the very face of a law 
positively prohibiting such appropriations ? 

Are such Christians just as encourage the taking of the 
government money to disseminate the dogmas of their re- 
spective churches among the Indians, when it is done in viola- 
tion of a provision of the Constitution " respecting the (non) 
establishment of religion ? " 

To the honor of one Christian body (the Baptists) be it 
known that they recently refused to take the portion of the 
public money which was offered to them, regarding the accept- 
ance of such money as wrong in principle. 

Is it just that my children should be taught in the public 
schools a religion which I regard as the main obstacle to the 
advancement of knowledge ? Did impartial justice suggest 
the utterance of President Seelye, of Amherst College, that 
the Christian religion should be taught in our public schools. 
" whether the consciences of the people approve it or not ? " 

Is it just that I should be prevented from pursuing my avo- 
cations and reasonable pleasures on any day of the week, 
because certain Christian fanatics have a senseless reverence 
for a particular day ? 

Is it just to the tens of thousands of workingmen who have 
but one day in the week in which to visit our museums of art 
and natural history, that they are denied this privilege because 
about a dozen Christian members of each board of trustees of 
these museums have certain views on the question of Sunday 
observance ? Was the money contributed by the city to these 
institutions given for the purpose of promulgating certain 
religious ideas, or was it given for the benefit of, and to exert 
a moral and refining influence upon, the masses? 

Can Christians be just who defend the action of those in 
control of Girard College in persistently influencing " the ten- 
der minds of the orphans" in matters of religion, in utter 
disregard of the expressed provisions of the great benefactor's 
will? 

Were the Christian trustees of the Columbia, S. C, Semin- 



CAN CHRISTIANS BE JUST? 57 

ary and of the Vanderbilt University just to Professors Wood- 
row and Winchell in expelling them — the one from the chair 
of geology, because he believed in the demonstrated fact that 
man existed on this globe more than six thousand years ago, 
and the other from the chair of natural science because he 
believed in the generally accepted fact of evolution ? 

Can Christians place a just estimate upon the discoveries 
of Copernicus, Humboldt, Darwin, when influenced by the 
false assumptions of the Bible regarding Astronomy, Geology 
and Biology? Was Spurgeon's estimate of these discoveries 
just when he said that he '* positively hated advanced 
thought?" 

Can Christians be just in their estimate of woman when 
governed by the teachings of the Bible, the writers of which 
held woman as far inferior to man, telling her " he shall rule 
over thee ? ' ' 

Can Christians be just who class those who differ in opinion 
from them with the worst elements of society ? Is it just to 
speak in the same sentence of " liars, thieves, murderers — and 
unbelievers? " 

Are Christians just to those who are not Christians in 
claiming that there is no morality, or humanity or benevolence 
outside of Christianity ? What impertinence as well as injus- 
tice to arrogate to themselves a monopoly of the ennobling 
qualities of our common nature. 

Are Christians just in their estimate of other believers in 
superstition? The superstitions of the Christian Church do 
not differ essentially from other superstitions. Both inculcate 
a belief in ghosts — holy and unholy — in the personality of evil 
and good — in a capricious Providence and generally in the 
reign of supernaturalism instead of that of natural law. Chris- 
tian missionaries are sent abroad at the expense of tens of 
millions of dollars annually to induce what are called "the 
Heathen " to make an exchange of their superstitions for those 
of Christianity. It is a mooted question as to whether one 
is any improvement on the other. Either are utterly repug- 
nant to reflective, intelligent beings. 



58 CAN CHRISTIANS BE JUST ? 

Have Christians been, and can they be, just to Voltaire and 
to his service to mankind in his efforts for mental emancipa- 
tion ? Says James Russell Lowell : ' ' To Voltaire, more than 
to any one man, we owe it that we can now think and speak 
as we choose." 

4 ' The pen is mightier than the sword" is an axiom the 
truth of which was never more truly illustrated than in the 
case of Thomas Paine. He accomplished far more by his pen 
toward the independence of these States than did the sword 
of Washington. Are Christians just to him in not owning their 
gratefulness for his incomparable services? Or, rather, was 
there ever greater injustice done — more ingratitude shown — 
than in the slanders of the church against him whose religion 
("to do good ' ' ) was infinitely higher and purer than that of 
his traducers ? 

Was the Christian father of Charles Bradlaugh just when he 
turned him from his home because he expressed dissent from 
the (unreasonable) thirty-nine articles of the English Church ? 
Was the Christian sentiment of England just which endeav- 
ored to keep Mr. Bradlaugh out of parliament because he had 
his own (honest) opinions on matters of religion, and because 
he bravely fought for the rights of those whom Christianity 
sought to enslave ? Labouchere says of Bradlaugh that he 
was, " in private life, thoroughly true and amiable ; in public 
life, ready to sacrifice popularity for his convictions of right ; 
whose standard of duty was a very high one and who lived up 
to it ; whose life was an example to Christians, for he abounded 
in every virtue." 

Have Christians been just to the brightest intellect of our 
century, the beauty and grandeur of whose utterances have 
been equalled by no mortal since the days of Shakespeare ; 
whose heart has ever been in sympathy with the oppressed of 
all religions ; who has been the most valiant knight of any 
age in battling for the boon of mental liberty ; whose sacrifices 
for honest thought are greater than can be estimated ; whose 
eloquent voice has been so often lifted against the greatest 
enemy of progress, viz : the superstition of religion. There 



CAN CHRISTIANS BE JUST? 59 

has not lived one endowed by nature with more kindliness, 
sympathy, rectitude, purity, pathos, vivacity, fertility, sub- 
limity, nobility, originality, comprehensiveness, genius, than 
Col. Ingersoll. And this is the man who, for a generation, 
has been the victim of the grossest misrepresentation and 
villification on the part of Christians ; simply and only because 
(as he has himself expressed it) his ' ' effort has been to make 
man superior to superstition." 

I could put the question, " Can Christians be Just? " in its 
almost every phrase, and the answer must, of necessity, be in 
the negative, for it is impossible that Christians can be just so 
long as they accept the (unjust) teachings of the Bible and 
believe in the (irrational) doctrine promulgated by such 
councils as that of Trent and such assemblies as that of West- 
minster. 



GOD. 

A FEW centuries ago, to say that there was no God, was 
to invite the stake. A few generations ago, to deny 
the Christian's God, was succeeded by imprisonment. A few 
decades ago, to question the existence of a personal God, was 
to incur the odium of public opinion. 

Thanks to the advance of liberal thought, a Christian cler- 
gyman (Rev. Minot J. Savage) is enabled to say, as he did 
recently, ' ' The question as to whether God exists or not, is, 
like any other question, open for discussion." Another 
Christian clergyman, Rev. W. H. Thomas of Chicago, says, 
" I question whether or not it is possible for the human intel- 
lect ever to stand without the possibility of doubt with refer- 
ence to God.'' 

Thomas Jefferson said, " Question with boldness even the 
existence of God. ' ' 

" Who, what, and where is God ? " has been asked millions 
of times ; but no intelligent, satisfactory answer has ever been 
given. Even Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage of Brooklyn has said, 
" If you ask me how a man can know about God, I cannot 
tell you." 

What is meant by the question, " Do you believe in God ?" 

Has the questioner any conception whatever of the import of 

the question ? Not the slightest. Rev. John W. Chadwick 

says, " The belief in God is as elusive to our logic as a drop 

of mercury is to our touch." Joubert has said, "It is easy 

to believe in God if you are not asked to define him." But 

why say "him?" Is God a person, and of the masculine 

gender? Emerson says, " When I speak of God, I prefer to 

say zV." And what does personality imply? It implies indi- 

(60) 



GOD. 6l 

viduality, isolation, identity, outline, limitation, form, distinct 
and separate existence. Are these consistent with the divine 
attribute of Ubiquity ? 

Rev. J. M. Capes (of the Church of England) says, " The 
word ' personality ' is a plain assertion that God is limited in 
his substance, and is therefore a denial of his infinity. " The 
orthodox creed says that "God is without body or parts." 
Surely this is not descriptive of personality. 

It says in the Bible that ' ' man is made in the image of 
God;" and Matthew Arnold says that " man has returned 
the compliment, and says that God is made in the image of 
man." Rev. J. W. Chadwick says : "That man is made in 
the image of God is not a more acceptable saying than that 
God is made in the image of man." 

This is illustrated by paintings in the picture galleries of 
Europe, where God is represented as a fine-looking old gen- 
tleman with a flowing white beard. And why not, if person- 
ality is insisted upon ? for man is the highest personality 
known to man. Says Dr. Hedge : " Man fashions his God 
in his own image and endows him with the attributes he has 
learned to respect in the wisest and best of men." Says Rev. 
J. W. Chadwick: "Mr. Ingersoll's saying, 'An honest 
God's the noblest work of man,' is not a mere witticism — it is 
profoundly true." 

But how very short of a perfect being is the God of the 
Bible. In that book he is represented as " petulant, jealous, 
cruel, vindictive, revengeful, unjust, untruthful, tricky, im- 
moral." (H. O. Pentecost.) In that book the attributes of 
Infinity are taken from him. The Bible says he has a " local 
habitation," and that he " comes and goes." This is incon- 
sistent with Omnipresence. The Bible says he " repented that 
he had made man." This is inconsistent with Omniscience. 
The Bible says he " could not drive out the inhabitants of the 
valley." This is inconsistent with Omnipotence. 

The Bible also represents him as delighting in sacrificial 
blood; as sending "a lying spirit" to mislead his own 
prophets ; as ordering the inhuman butchery of thousands of 



62 GOD. 

men, married women and children, and the capture, for the 
soldiery, of the maidens ! 

As Judge Westbrook has said, "The low conception and 
gross representations of the character of God should put the 
blush upon the cheek of cannibalism itself." 

The late Phineas T. Barnum (a thoroughly religious man) 
said, ' ' The orthodox faith painted God as so revengeful a 
being that you could hardly distinguish the difference between 
God and the Devil." 

Is it the " God of love " that we read of in Deut. xxviii, 
from the 15th verse — which sounds like the anathemas of the 
Pope of Rome ? 

"The God men make for men — 
A God impossible to common sense." 

It is a singular fact that those whom Christians have termed 
Infidels are the very persons who (so far as they believed in a 
God) had the most exalted idea of Deity. 

Thomas Paine' s conception of God far transcends that of 
the orthodox Christian. 

Lord Bacon says, ''An ill opinion of God is worse than 
Atheism." 

" Orthodoxy made God a capricious tyrant, and Infidelity 
sought relief by abolishing him." (IV. Y. Herald.) 

Col. Ingersoll said, " From the aspersions of the pulpit I 
would rescue the reputation of the Deity." 

Whether there is a God or not, it is safe to say that the 
orthodox God does not exist. 

The question recurs : Is there any God ? 

La Place says : " The telescope sweeps the skies without 
finding God." Lalande has said, " I have searched through 
the heavens, and nowhere have I found a trace of God." 

Mr. T. B. Wakeman says : " There is no possible room 
anywhere for an extra-mundane God. The true God is the 
totality of the correlated Universe." This he denominates 
11 monism," in which term he finds the philosophy of Bruno, 
Spinoza, Comte, and Haeckel, 



GOD. 63 

I think that but comparatively few thoughtful, intelligent 
beings believe in a persoiiality called God. There are those 
who believe in God as " that vast power which rules in the 
Universe in all things bylaw." (Hon. Andrew D. White.) 
Matthew Arnold says, " All things seem to us to have what 
we call a law of their being ; whether we call this God or not, 
is a matter of choice." Rev. M. J. Savage says, ''There are 
no laws of God except the natural laws of the universe." 
Tennyson says : " God is law." John Fiske says, " God is 
not will, but law:" and Rev. William Wilberforce Newton 
says, "If law is God, then there is no personality, and if 
there is no personality then there is no will." 

There is no consensus of opinion as to what is the definition 
of the term God. It is the most unmeaning of words. Be- 
sides the God of personality there is the God of immanence 
and the God of transcendence. 

Among believers in the last of these may be included Francis 
Ellingwood Abbott, PH. D. ; Dr. Robert G. Eccles ; Prof. 
Lewis G. Jayne ; Sir Wm. Hamilton (who says, " As a trans- 
cendental is an unconditioned being, God cannot be scientifi- 
cally known ;") and Herbert Spencer (who says, " There is 
a power behind humanity and behind all things . . . the 
Unknowable.") 

Believers in a God of immanence may include Rev. S. R. 
Calthorp, who says, " Nature and God are the same ; " Rev. 
J. W. Chadwick : "There are not God and nature — God is 
nature;" Goethe: "He who rises not high enough to see 
God and nature as one, knows neither;" Rev. Lyman 
Abbott, D. D. : "God and nature are not dual. We have 
abandoned the carpenter conception of creation, and are sub- 
stituting for it the far grander conception of a God immanent 
in nature ; " Rev. Dr. Greer (of St. Bartholomew's Church) : 
" God is immanent in all human life ; " Alexander Pope : 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

Are not these Pantheistic or Monistic, rather than Deistic 
or Theistic conceptions ? 



64 GOD. 

Every age, every nation, has had its God ; differing only 
as human conceptions of Deity differ, but known under differ- 
ent names : to the Norseman as Odin, to the Egyptian as 
Osiris, to the Phoenician as Baal, to the Babylonian as Belus, 
to the Persian as Ormuzd, to the Hindoo as Brahma, to the 
Greek as Zeus, to the Roman as Jupiter, to the Mohammedan 
as Allah, to the Jew as Jehovah, to the American Indian as 
the Great Spirit, to the African Pygmies as Yer, and to the 
Christian as God ; all the same or similar creations of the 
imagination — for, of course, it is impossible for the finite to 
know the Infinite. Henry Frank (late of the Congregational 
Church at Jamestown, N. Y.) has said : " You ask me what 
God is. If I knew, /would be God." 

Agnosticism can neither affirm nor deny the existence of 
God. It certainly cannot affirm the existence of that which it 
is impossible to demonstrate ; and Rev. R. Heber Newton 
has said, ' • You cannot demonstrate God. ' ' 



RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 

" Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear 
A light is breaking, calm and clear." — Whittier. 

NONE of the "signs of the times" are more conspicuous 
than the indications that the days of religion, or at least 
of orthodox or ecclesiastical or theological religion, are fast 
passing away. In no generation that is past has so much been 
accomplished in this regard as in the present. The air is filled 
with the boldest expressions of those who have revolted 
against the unreasoning theology which has held the minds of 
the people in its tyrannical grasp. The determination to 
exercise the reasoning faculties, to indulge in what is known 
as the "higher criticism," instead of permitting our intelli- 
gence to be subordinated to blind, unquestioning faith ; to- 
gether with the great discoveries in the sciences — in astronomy, 
in geology, in paleontology, in biology, — have well-nigh 
exterminated the theology of the first half of the century. 
The press (daily and weekly,) the monthly magazines, books 
innumerable, scientists, philosophers, scholars and theologians 
(of more or less liberal views,) are demanding a religion that 
invites discussion, that fears not investigation, and that is in 
the fullest accord with the latest discoveries of science. 

" Criticism is at work with knife and fire. Let us cut down 
everything that is dead and harmful, every kind of dead or- 
thodoxy, every species of effete ecclesiasticism." (Rev. 
Charles K. Briggs, D. D.) 

Orthodoxy and ecclesiasticism are being undermined more 

by the discoveries of Darwin and Haeckel than by almost any 

other influence. The accepted theory (or rather recognized 

fact) of evolution teaches the rise of man from lower orders of 

(65) 



66 RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 

beings, in opposition to the rejected dogma of the fall of man. 
The argument adduced therefrom being that if there was no 
fall of man, then there was no Adamic sin ; if no sin then no 
atonement — no eternal punishment ; and so the whole theo- 
logical structure totters to its fall. 

" In the light of to-day" (says Rev. M. J. Savage,) the 'plan 
of salvation ' has no rational excuse for existing one day 
longer." 

' ' Christianity is seriously weakened by the spirit of doubt 
and speculation so largely fostered by modern science. It has 
lost its hold on large numbers of people."— (JV. Y. Tribune.} 

"The scientists treat theology with contempt. . . . 
Scientific skepticism is invading the pulpit, and all that dis- 
tinguishes the Bible from any treatise on moral philosophy is 
gradually being surrendered by leading theologians. 
They are losing religion as well as theology." (Buchanan's 
Journal of Man. ) 

Every advanced student must know the characteristic spirit 
of the age to be a general revolt against traditional theories." 
(I. H. Hyslop in Princeton Review , Sept., 1888.) 

Rev. Dr. A. J. F. Behrends demands that "theology — like 
science and philosophy — shall deal only with what can be 
accurately known." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says: "Faith has outlived the 
superstitious doctrines of the atonement and of eternal punish- 
ment. . . . The growth of knowledge has intensified the 
decay of ecclesiasticism. . . . The modern world is pass- 
ing through the greatest change of intellectual outlook which 
has probably ever been experienced by man. . . . Men 
in ever-increasing numbers are exiling themselves from the 
homes of their fathers, because the priesthoods of Rome and 
of Protestantism allow them no freedom of thought and speech 
in the ancestral mansions, but only the slavery of superstition 
or the silence of cowardice." 

Rev. Hugh Curry said at the Church Congress in Cleve- 
land, O. : " The once popular notions regarding the character 
of the life eternal and of the resurrection of the dead, have 



RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 6j 

ceased to command the assent of the great body of intelligent 
believers. ' ' 

A correspondent of the N. Y. Tribu?ie from Canton, O., 
writing of the MacQueary heresy (disbelief in a hell, in the 
physical resurrection of Christ and of his virgin birth,) says : 
" The theology of the Church is in a state of flux ; . . . 
the old order is passing away. . . . If we are going to 
condemn Mr. MacQueary ... we shall have to condemn 
a multitude of other clergymen." 

Rev. Geo. C. Lorimer, D. D., in the Arena for September, 
says: "Heresy is in the air. . . . Everywhere it is 
being discussed. . . . Religious papers are apparently 
staggering at the inroads which the so-called higher criticism 
has made of late." 

The Philosophical Journal says : "There is an advance in 
heresy all along the line. What was ' infidelity ' twenty years 
ago is now taught in orthodox theological seminaries and from 
orthodox pulpits." 

In March last, eight heresy trials were going on in Pittsburg, 
Pa., alone. 

Rev. Thomas Dixon (Baptist) speaking of the coming trial 
of Rev. Dr. Briggs, says : " It belongs to the credulence and 
ignorance and superstition of barbaric times. It smells of 
roasting flesh. . , . Is it a crime to think ? If so the 
days of the Church are numbered. The fight means reason 
against stupidity — miscalled faith." 

The Boston Journal recently said : " The world is growing 
very sick of theological zVz-humanity." 

The St. Louis Advocate says : " Robert Elsmere and John 
Ward preach to us instead of Peter and Paul. We have 
surrendered faith to philosophy — revelation to reason." 

Froude says : ' ' Theologians no longer speak with authority. 
. . . Those who uphold orthodoxy cannot tell on what 
ground to defend it. . . . Along the whole line the defend- 
ing forces of orthodoxy are falling back, not knowing where 
to make a stand." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " The disintegration of the 



68 RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 

popular theology is going on as rapidly as any one opposed 
to it can wish. . . . From scores of magazines and papers, 
from hundreds of pulpits and professors' chairs, the trumpet 
blast is summoning to judgment the traditional doctrines of the 
churches. . . . Probably never at any time in the world's 
history has there been such an immense deflection from the 
traditional creeds as during the last thirty years. ... I 
have not the least idea that our popular Christianity is going 
to be the religion of the future. ' ' 

" Infidelity is in the air." — {Christian at Work.") 

" A deluge of infidelity is rapidly spreading over Europe. 
In the United States and Canada, Agnosticism is cropping 
out everywhere. " (Archbishop Lynch, R. C. , Toronto.) 

" It is in vain to ignore or deny that a glacier of unbelief is 
moving down from the higher moral latitudes." — {Western 
Christian Advocate?) 

"A collapse of religious belief of the most complete and 
tremendous kind is now apparently at hand." — (Prof. Goldwin 
Smith.) 

" A process of religious decomposition has been going on 
for many years past." — {Saturday Review.) 

" What a change in religious sentiment and temper since 
thirty years ago." — (Oliver Wendell Holmes.) 

" Latitudinarianism is spreading rapidly in .the Church of 
England." — (Bishop Harold Brown.) 

" Rationalism is destroying religion." — (Rev. W. W. 
Everts, D. D.) 

"Christianity is declining." — (Rev. Alfred Niven, D. D.) 

" The great mass of mankind have been slowly but irresist- 
ibly breaking away from the anchorage of dogma." — (N. K 
Commercial Advertiser. ) 

The public mind has slid from the old [religious] grooves." 
{The Congregationalist.') 

" The old hulk of theology must be abandoned." — (Rev. 
Frank Dixon, Oakland, Cal.) 

Rev. J. H. Rylance recently preached a sermon on the 
" decadence of ecclesiasticism," calling upon the Church to 



RELIGIOUS DECADENCE 69 

recognize and appreciate the fact that " the spirit and methods 
of medievalism 3.rego?ie." 

Rev. Philip SchafT, D, D., says : ''Now that the spirit of 
revision has spread over the Christian world, a return to nar- 
row and exclusive orthodoxy is simply impossible." 

4 ' The old sanctions of ecclesiasticism are losing their force 
with thinking people." — (Rev. James B. Watson in North 
American Review.) 

11 We are now on the eve of the greatest change in tradi- 
tional views that has taken place since the birth of Christian- 
ity."— (Prof. LeConte.) 

"Religion is losing its hold upon men." — (Rev. Dr. 
McGlynn.) 

1 ' Religion is rapidly ceasing to be an integral part of our 
social life." — (Bishop Gilmour, Forum, June, 1888.) 

" Religion is now called upon to show why it should any 
longer claim our allegiance." — (John Fiske. ) 

" A great change is going on in many of our American 
colleges as to the place allotted to religion Some of them 
are abandoning one position after another, until little is left. 
Unless Christian sentiment arrest it, religion will disappear 
from a number of our colleges," — (Rev. James McCosh, D. 
D., late President Princeton College.) 

Professor Swing of Chicago says of the contest of reason 
with Christianity: "Whether anything of Christianity will 
remain, is the question." 

Archdeacon Farrar says : ' ' Scarcely a single truth of capital 
importance in science has ever been enunciated without having 
to struggle for life against the fury of theological dogmatists. 
. . A great Puritan divine thought he had checked the 
progress of astronomical inquiry when he said that he pre- 
ferred to believe the Holy Ghost rather than Newton; yet 
Newton was absolutely right and the Puritan divine hope- 
lessly wrong." 

Rev. Henry P. Smith, of Lane Theological Seminary, says : 
" A rigid insistance upon the Westminster doctrines 
would vacate every chair of exegesis in the Church." 



JO RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 

Rev. Dr. Van Dyke, Jr., says : " Why should we retain in 
our creed what none of us believe ? ' ' 

Rev. Dr. Van Dyke, Sr., says : " If we cannot have liberty 
and orthodoxy, let orthodoxy go." 

Rev. T. De Witt Talmage says: "Now that the electric 
lights have been turned on the imperfections of our creed, 
. . . let us put it aside respectfully and get a brand new 
one. 

No one influence towards undermining superstitious theo- 
logical beliefs has been more potent than the pungent ut- 
terances of the greatest thinker, the most convincing writer, 
the most brilliant orator of the age. Col. Ingersoll's masterly 
and unanswerable exposure of the absurdities of orthodox theo- 
logy are being recognized by intelligent men and women, the 
world over — even in the orthodox Church. 

At a meeting of Presbytery in New York city in 1890 a 
clergyman, opposed to advanced thought, said that his 
" church was taking Col. Ingersoll as its guide and leader." 

Rev. Thomas Dixon, speaking of Shedd's theology, says : 
" If I believed such stuff, I would lay down my ministry to- 
morrow and join hands with Ingersoll." 

Rev. Samuel W. Small, of Philadelphia, says : "What he 
(Ingersoll) said was sought for, eagerly read and discussed by 
millions of the reading public of the world. ... If his 
speeches are worthy of being printed in the secular press, they 
are worthy of attention and answer from the editors of our 
Church papers, provided the latter are able to answer them." 

Rev. John R. Paxton, of New York city, says: "This is 
an age when people analyze. . . . The Church is un- 
doubtedly on the brink of revolution. ... A man like 
Ingersoll would not receive a hearing to-day. The ministers 
have gone beyond him. ' ' 

In the same vein of thought the New York Sun said re- 
cently : " Ingersoll and Huxley and the whole band of avowed 
Agnostics and Infidels are not doing so much to bring about 
the downfall of religious faith as the majority of the delegates 
to the Presbyterian General Assembly are to-day unwittingly 



RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 7 I 

doing by assailing the very foundations of faith with the 
weapons and strategy of mere human reason." 

The statistical evidence of the decadence of religion (or at 
least of the Protestant religion) is most convincing. 

Peri Andrews in the Forum for August, 1890, says : "In 
1840 there was one Protestant church (in New York city) to 
every 2,000 persons, and in 1888 there was one to every 
4,000 persons." 

Rev. Dr. Morris reported to the Presbyterian General 
Assembly in May, 1889, that there were six churches without 
any membership, and in 108 churches a membership on an 
average, of but three and one-half persons. 

Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage said recently : " Within the last 
twenty-five years the churches in this country have averaged 
less than two conversions a year each. There has been an 
average of four or five deaths in the churches. We gain two : 
we lose four." 

Rev. George J. Mingens says : "Of the 40,000 people who 
die every year in New York city, not ten per cent, believe in 
God." 

A correspondent at what has been termed the "garden 
spot of Ohio" — the Western Reserve (settled in great part 
by New Englanders,) writing to the Religious Herald of 
Hartford, Ct., says: "In places where churches were well 
sustained fifty years ago there are no religious influences." 

Rev. A. C. Peabody, D. D., says: "Church attendance 
has sadly fallen off. ' ' 

Rev. Roderick Terry, D. D., (N. Y. city,) says: "We 
cannot fail to notice the falling off of attendance at religious 
worship and the apparent loss of respect for religious ideas 
and customs." 

Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., says : "There are 250 
churches in Massachusetts which report but two conversions, 
all told, last year. ' ' 

The Independent said, four years since, that there were 
1,000 wrcemployed Congregational ministers in the United 
States. 



72 RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 

The A 7 ! Y. Evangelist says: "Four-fifths of the young 
men of the country are skeptics." 

Henry Ward Beecher said, not long since : " Ninety per 
cent, of those engaged in the higher field of research are 
Agnostics." 

The Andover Review quotes Dr. Dunning as saying that 
" there are ninety -five towns in Maine where no religious serv- 
ices are held." 

The Mail and Express, Dec. 10, 1890, says : "One-fourth 
of the population of California are between 16 and 21 years of 
age ; ovXy five per cent, of these ever attend church." 

Rev. J. W. Weddell says: "Only one in ten of the 
population in Chicago are Christians." Dr. Dorchester says 
that in Colorado it is only one in twenty. In Nevada one in 
forty-six ; in Wyoming one in eighty-one, and in Arizona one 
in 685. 

The St. Louis Globe- Democrat says that "of 85,000 men 
and boys in public in that city on a given Sunday, 75,000 are 
engaged in public sports and amusements." 

Rev. Wm. Lloyd says : "There is a woeful lack of real 
earnest Christianity. The class of indifferentists grows daily. 
The costly temples are not half-filled ; and many of those who 
go have no vital feeling. ' ' 

These are a few of the many testimonies to the decadence of 
old religious ideas ; and they are mostly from those who 
deplore such decadence, but who are compelled by the facts to 
admit it. 

New religious ideas are taking the place of the old. Not 
only a new but a true religion is now being demanded, and is 
fast approaching. A religion without dogma, without creed, 
without fear, without theology. As Rev. R. Heber Newton 
says, " The churches must distinguish between theology and 
religion." A religion which invites criticism and is in perfect 
accord with the sciences ; which basks in the sunshine of 
reason, and which is no more like ecclesiastical religion than 
are the kindly utterances attributed to Christ like the fiendish 
acts of Tomas de Torquemada and John Calvin. A religion 



RELIGIOUS DECADENCE. 73 

of humanity, of altruism, of love, of justice. A religion that 
discards the traditional, the fabulous, the miraculous, and that 
worships at the shrine of truth. The dawn of such a religion 
is upon us ; and faith in advancing civilization, in progressive 
intelligence, in growing tolerance, in the ever onward march 
of the sciences, foretells its meridian triumph. 

"The hour is coming when men's holy Church 
Shall melt away in ever-widening walls, 
And be for all mankind ; and in its place 
A mightier Church shall come, whose covenant word 
Shall be the deeds of love. Not Credo then ; 
Amo shall be the password through its gates ; 
Man shall not ask his brother any more 
1 Believest thou ? ' but, ' Lovest thou ? ' " 



FAITH. 

OF all the absurd and illogical positions assumed by 
religion none seems more so than that which makes 
faith the basis of belief. 

No belief can, by any possibility, be founded on faith alone ; 
there must be the understratum of the rational faculty to give 
faith proper direction and intelligent exercise. 

" Reason must be the rock-bed of our faith. * * * We 
should submit every article of faith to the test of reason." 
(Rev. R. Heber Newton.) 

No matter how parsimonious a use is made of this faculty, 
it is absolutely indispensible that it should (to however limited 
a degree) precede faith, even with the most credulous of 
zealots. 

A transposition of the proposition (that belief is by faith) 
is the correct one, faith being dependent upon belief rather 
than belief upon faith ; faith is a consequence of belief rather 
than that belief is a consequence of faith, belief leading rather 
than following faith. Even Cardinal Manning (A r . A. Review, 
Oct., 1888,) says: "The last act of reasoning precedes the 
first act of faith. ' ' 

Reason and faith are distinct qualities, independent in their 
action. 

11 Reason, subjected to faith, ceases to be reason." 

Belief is not a function of faith. It is the office of reason 
(and of reason alone) to determine on matters of belief. 

"No one can teach belief in things unknown (or urge 
to) faith in that which reason fails to see or justify. " 

It may be said of faith, that to the extent reason is COn- 



FAITH. 75 

vinced of the truth of what is believed, it intensifies belief. 
This is all that can be legitimately claimed for faith. 

There is naught so ignorant, irrational, indiscriminating 
and cruel as blind, "Unquestioned faith, unvitalized by 
thought," as the history of fanaticism in all ages of the world 
has demonstrated. 

" Blind faith is the one unpardonable sin." — (Huxley.) 
There is no fact more patent than that belief is involuntary. 
You cannot believe by the mere exercise of the will any more 
than you can possess yourself of riches by a similar exercise. 
A remarkably clear and convincing treatise on this subject 
is found in Dvvight H. Olmstead, Esq.'s, book, "The Prot- 
estant Faith," but which may be, for the present occasion, 
summarized in one quotation from it, viz. : " Belief is simply 
the result of thought." 

" Belief is not the child of volition, but of conviction." 
"Belief is, in no case, directly dependent on the will." 
(Rev. Mark Hopkins, d. d.) 

" Belief is not a matter of will, but evidence." 
' ' Faith is the result of evidence. ' ' (Rev. Wright Robertson.) 
" Faith is an effect, not a cause." — (Judge Westbrook.) 
" Faith should be rational, rather than scriptural. — "(Prof. 
Smyth, of Andover.) 

The Christian Church falsely assumes that to believe is a 
meritorious act. "It is neither a virtue nor a vice. To 
believe can never be a duty." 

Greg, in his "Creed of Christendom," says: " Belief is 
an effect produced by a cause. Being therefore an effect and 
not an act, it cannot be a merit. The moment it becomes a 
distinctly voluntary act it ceases to be genuine. It is then 
brought about by the will of the individual, not by the bona 
fide operation of evidence upon the mind, which brings us to 
the reductio ad abswdum that belief can only become meritori- 
ous by ceasing to be honest." 

Belief by faith, which religion exacts of its devotees as a 
pledge of fidelity, is immoral in its tendencies, cruel in its 
practices and degrading in its consequences. 



76 FAITH. 

Through ' ' belief by faith ' ' the Parsee lacerates his flesh 
until the blood flows in streams from his wounds. 

Through " belief by faith " the Hindoo mother casts her 
offspring to the Ganges and the Hindoo widow climbs the 
funeral pyre of her husband. 

Through " belief by faith " in — and to appease — the gods, 
the Carthagenians put to death the most promising children 
of their nobility. 

Through "belief by faith" the torch was applied to the 
literary treasures of Alexandria ; once by Moslem and once by 
Christian bigots. 

It was ' ' belief by faith ' ' that urged a fanatical and brutal 
mob, led by a Christian patriarch, to the murder of Hypatia, 
one of the most gifted women of either ancient or modern 
times. 

Through ' ' belief by faith ' ' intellectual darkness pervaded 
Europe for a thousand years. 

Through "belief by faith" Copernicus was intimidated, 
Galileo terrorized, and Bruno burned. 

Through "belief by faith" in the sacredness of certain 
days the charge for absolution for marrying on days appointed 
by the church was two pounds, while that for killing a human 
being was but three shillings. 

Through ' ' belief by faith ' ' the Romish devotee presents 
the painful and humiliating spectacle of ascending holy stairs 
(!) on bended knee. 

Through " belief by faith ' ' intelligence is insulted by the 
claim that bread and wine are transmuted into Omnipo- 
tence. 

Through " belief by faith " the sprinkling of water betokens 
an eternity of happiness. 

"Belief by faith" takes young men and young women 
from under the parental roof and incarcerates them in prisons 
— called monasteries and nunneries. 

It was "belief by faith ' in the teachings of the Christian 
Church, that recently prompted an ex-priest in Canada to 
abandon his lawful wife and two innocent babes, because he 



FAITH. 77 

had repented ( !) of having violated his priestly vows in enter- 
ing the marriage state. 

"Belief by faith" sends millions of weary pilgrims to 
Mecca, and other millions to Treves, for a glimpse of the holy 
(!) coat. 

"Belief by faith" rejects the fact of natural causes for 
famine, pestilence, earthquakes and tornadoes, and bows in 
abject fear before some supposed spirit of evil. 

"Belief by faith" opens the portals of the "Heavenly 
Jerusalem ' ' to the murderer, whose last hours are comforted 
by the assurances of his "spiritual adviser," that eleventh- 
hour repentance is as efficacious as a whole life of uprightness. 

Through "belief by faith" the Italian brigand bows in 
adoration to the Madonna, and straightway plunges his stiletto 
into the heart of the wayfarer. 

The doctrine of " belief by faith " plunged the knife of the 
Pocassett imitator of Abraham into the heart of his innocent 
child. 

" Belief by faith" in the Romish Church bestows the at- 
tribute of infallibility on a man, and " belief by faith " in the 
Protestant Church bestows the same attribute on a book. 

" Belief by faith " in the Bible injunction, " Thou shalt not 
permit a witch to live," has been instrumental in the persecu- 
tion, torture and murder of (it is estimated) nine millions of 
human beings. 

"Belief by faith" in the words, " I came not to bring 
peace, but a sword," so stimulated fanaticism, in the days of 
the Crusades, that (it is estimated) twenty millions of lives 
were sacrificed. 

" Belief by faith" in the teaching of the " gentle Jesus " — 
" They who will not that I shall rule over them, bring hither 
and slay before me" — has cost the world, probably, not less 
than fifty millions of human lives. 

"Belief by faith" in the Bible text — " If any are sick, call 
for the elders, and let them pray over him" — has sacrificed 
many a life which medical treatment would doubtless have 
saved. 



78 FAITH. 

" Belief by faith " in the examples and teachings of the Bible 
sustained polygamy in Utah and slavery in the South, and has 
retarded the progress of temperance. 

Through " belief by faith " in the astronomy of Moses the 
heliocentric system was rejected. 

"Belief by faith " in biblical biology, repels the scientific 
fact of evolution. 

Through " belief by faith " we have become heirs to the 
Puritan bigotry of the seventeenth century, as especially 
exemplified in our atrocious Sunday laws. 

" Belief by faith " lit the fires of Seville, of Smithfield, of 
Geneva and of Salem, and "carried fagots to the feet of 
philosophy.' ' 

" Belief by faith " induced the absurd utterance of Tertulian 
— "I believe because it is impossible" — and the equally ab- 
surd utterance of Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, d. d. — "I 
believe certain passages in the Bible because I cannot under- 
stand them." 

The injunction to " believe by faith," had its origin in igno- 
rance, and was nurtured by superstition and fear. It fosters 
injustice, arrogance and tyranny. It is responsible for more 
persecution, oppression, cruelty, sorrow and loss of human 
life, than any other single cause. 

Nothing has so antagonized science, retarded civilization, 
discouraged learning, and repressed kindly feeling. 

Faith is uninvestigating, unreasoning, benighting, terror- 
izing. 

John Morley says: "Those who dwell in the tower of 
ancient faiths, look about them in one constant apprehension, 
misgiving and wonder ; with the hurried, uneasy mien of 
people living upon earthquakes." 

" Faith has burned libraries, closed schools, anathematized 
science, martyred philosophers, stayed the progress of the 
human race, wrought incalculable evils to civilization." — (Rev. 
R. Heber Newton.) 

"The greatest curse to a nation, is a form of faith which 
prevents manly inquiry." — (Inman.) 



FAITH. 79 

" The detainment of faith (says the cleric), not the ascertain- 
ment of truth, is the highest aim of life. . . . Every great 
advance in knowledge has involved the annihilation of the 
spirit of blind faith." — (Huxley.) 

" — faith, once wedded fast 
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last," 

— Lalla Rookh. 

A thousand religions there are (according to the late Rev. 
Dr. Hitchcock), embracing all shades of differing faiths — and 
all equally ignorant. Each is the offspring of environment 
and education, and neither are capable of the slightest proof. 
The adherents of each are equally confident that theirs, alone, 
is the true faith. 

" All faiths are, to their ow?i believers, just, 
For none believe because they will, but must, 
By education most have been misled : 
We so believe because we so are bred. 
The priest continues what the nurse began, 
And thus the boy imposes on the man." — Dryden. 

" Religions are opinions ; prove but one 
And all men mingle in a common faith." 

There is, however, a higher sense than in its reference to 
religion, in which the word faith may be used. A faith 

"not pent within a book, 
Or buried in a creed," 

but in all that is good and grand and beautiful and useful in 
the illimitable universe ; faith in truth, in principle, in integrity 
of character, in human affections, in noble deeds, in the in- 
spired volume of nature, in the vitalizing forces which science 
is revealing to us in the ever-widening and ceaseless flow of 
intelligent thought. 

' ' For modes of faith let pious zealots fight : 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." — Pope. 

"There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
than in half the creeds." — Tennyson. 



RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 

" Morality may exist independently of religious ideas." — Guizot. 
" Religion never yet has purified morality." — Rev. J. W. Chadwick. 

THE Christian Church has assumed to regard morality as 
that which has not existed and cannot exist outside of 
Christendom. It ignores the fact that long before the Chris- 
tian era the principle of morality was held in as high esteem 
as it ever has been during the past nineteen centuries. It is 
needless to mention the illustrious names of philanthropists, 
philosophers, poets, and others of ancient times, whose stand- 
ard of morality was as high as that of any later date. Call 
Homer, Lycurgus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, 
Cicero, Seneca, immoral? What an insult to intelligence ! 

It (the Christian Church) impudently prates of " Christian 
morality " — as though the adherents of other religions (or of 
no religion) were utterly devoid of moral ideas and unused to 
moral practices. 

The same code of morals exist among the people of every 
religion, and of those who repudiate what goes by the name 
of religion, as that which exists among Christians ; and as to 
practice, the Christian Church can justly claim no advantage 
if, indeed, it cannot be shown that Christianity lags behind 
those who differ from, it in that regard. 

With reference to the code of morals of other religions, in 
substantiation of what I have asserted, I quote from orthodox, 
Christian authority. Rev. E. F. Burr, D. D., of Lyme, Ct., 
in his Universal Belief, says : ' ' We find statements or impli- 
cations of all the main elements of common morality in the 
Indian religion. . . . The Avesta of the Persians has like 
testimonies to the common principles of humanity. 
The early Egyptian ethics strongly resembled the higher re- 
quirements of the Christian religion. . . . Confucius 

(80) 



RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 8 1 

taught the 'golden rule,' which is reallly the whole scheme 
of Christian morals in short hand. . . . There is scarcely 
a thing forbidden or commanded in the Bible which is not 
also forbidden or commanded in the Tripitaka. . . . We 
find substantially the same moral ideas prevailing among the 
Greeks and Romans. ... In the Koran we find ourselves 
able to piece out a very large code of correct morals, one that 
follows very closely in the steps of Christianity itself." 

Rev. Minot J. Savage says : " There are moral men in all 
religions and in no religion." 

Rev. N. A. Staples says : " The great mass of the Christian 
precepts and principles had already been embodied in other 
writings. ' ' 

"Ye' 11 get the best of moral books 
'Mang black Gentoos and Pagan Turks, 
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi, 
Wha never heard of orthodoxy. ' ' — Burns. 

Mrs. Annie Besant, Canon Taylor, Joseph Thompson (the 
African explorer,) DeHolde, Rev. Mr. Nevins (missionary to 
China,) Rev. Mr. Macolm (in his Travels,) all have shown 
that the morality existing among the Buddhists, the Moham- 
medans, the Chinese, the Burmese, and many others whose 
religions differ from that of Christianity, is fully equal, and in 
many respects, superior to that of Christianity. 

In Mosheim's Church History of the Fourth Century, he 
speaks of the gross immoralities existing in the Christian 
Church, and adds that " to deceive and lie, when religion can 
be promoted by it, was a virtue." 

Only a few years ago a Presbyterian minister, recently chan- 
cellor of the University of New York City, said : "I believe 
in deceit ; I believe in deceit whenever you have a rightful 
enemy to destroy." 

Lecky says of the Byzantine Empire, in which, for nearly 
eleven centuries, faith in Christianity abounded, that "the 
universal verdict of history is that it constitutes, without excep- 
tion, the most thoroughly base and despicable form that 
civilization has yet assumed." 

In Samuel Johnson's Oriental Religions we read: "The 



82 RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 

gross immoralities of Europeans in India led to the use of the 
term Christian as a by-word." 

The Pall Mall Gazette says : ' ' The heathen are right to 
test Christianity, not by the words of English missionaries, 
but by the lives of English merchants." 

Mrs. S. L. Baldwin (missionary of the Methodist Board to 
China,) petitioned Congress for permission to import a heathen 
to this country on the ground that ' ' the private virtues of the 
heathen showed far stronger signs of thrift than our own. ' ' 

Rev. E. D. Jones (for many years a missionary in China) 
says : ' ' The moral condition of the Chinese is better at home 
than here." 

Rev. Dr. Happer, for nearly forty years a missionary in 
China, while dining at my home, said that " in Canton (with 
about the same population as that of New York City) it is not 
usual to bar doors or fasten windows ; and as to murders, 
more are committed in one week in New York than in one 
year in Canton." 

Helen H. Gardener says : "In five years' experience with 
those gentle and faithful heathen from Japan, I have never 
been compelled to turn a key upon either food, jewels or 
money." 

Canon Farrar says : ' ' While the English have converted 
one Hindoo to Christianity they have made one hundred 
drunkards." 

The Christian at Work says : ! ' Where the English have 
converted one Chinaman to Christianity they have made two 
hundred addicted to the opium habit." 

In Williams' Middle Ki?igdom, we read that the Pagan 
Emperor of China destroyed more than twenty thousand 
chests of opium rather than injure his subjects and fill his own 
pockets with its sale, while Christian England instituted the 
cruel wars of 1840 and 1857, which resulted in the theft of 
Hong Kong and the forcing of ten million pounds of opium 
annually upon Heathen China. 

Captain Adams of the Golden Fleece remarks : " I saw less 
wickedness on the Heathen shores of China, India, Java and 



RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 83 

Sumatra than on the Christian wharves of New York, Boston, 
London and Liverpool." 

Mosheim has said that less morality existed among Chris- 
tian than among other nations. 

The Britannica Encyclopedia (article on Missions) says : 
"The Mohammedans are more upright and moral than the 
Christians. . . It is notorious that fraud, violence, 

drunkenness and debaucheries are more numerous in Christian 
countries than in any other." 

Bishop Payne (of the African Methodist Episcopal Church) 
writes: " Not more than one-third of the ministers — Baptist 
and Methodist — in the South are morally and intellectually 
qualified." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : ' ' As for crimes of business 
dishonesty and defalcation, has it not been a theme of almost 
universal comment that the wrong-doer has been, in the great 
majority of cases, men of influence and importance in the 
churches of the popular religion?" 

Mr. Gladstone recently wrote : "To my great pain and dis- 
appointment I have found, during the last three years, that 
thousands of churchmen supplied the great mass of those who 
have gone lamentably wrong upon questions involving the 
interests of truth, justice and humanity. 

Scarcely a day passes in which is not found a record of some 
immoral act committed by some clergyman or Sunday-school 
superintendent, or other professor of religion, thus conclusively 
proving that religion does not necessarily restrain immorality. 

District Attorney Stanton, of Connecticut, four years ago, 
said : " Within the past ten years five millions of dollars have 
been lost in Connecticut by dishonest bank and other manage- 
ment ; in nearly every instance by those who were prominent 
in church matters." 

" Try every art of legal thieving ; 

No matter — stick to sound believing." — Burns. 

No more outrageous violation of the eighth commandment 
can be found in the annals of history than the act of Christian- 
ity in stealing Girard College and appropriating an immense 



84 RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 

legacy to the uses of a religion of which the munificent bene- 
factor of learning expressed, in unmistakable terms, his utter 
abhorrence. The frivolous, absurd and false excuse that as 
the will had provided for instilling in the minds of the students 
"the purest principles of morality," and that these principles 
are nowhere to be found but in the Christian religion, is worthy 
only of a religion that has exemplified its dishonesty, its im- 
morality, its cruelty, more than that of any other religion. As 
well might Mohammedanism appropriate to its own use, and 
for the same reason, the funds with which Mr. Christopher R. 
Robert and other Christians have endowed ' ' Robert College 
at Constantinople. 

The coarseness, indecency and immorality of the book 
which is the Christian's authority and guide is enough to con- 
demn it in the eyes of every virtuous, unprejudiced, person. 

The Freeman' s Journal of June 20th, 1891, gives a startling 
account of the immoral influence of the Bible in our public 
schools, especially in such as are attended by the youth of 
both sexes. 

In the New York Evangelist of May 29th, 1890, is a letter 
from Rev. Dr. C. H. Parkhurst (minister of the Presbyterian 
Church on Madison Square, New York City), in which he 
says : " Noah built an ark and got into a beastly condition of 
intoxication. . . . Abraham had more wives than meets 
the requirements of modern law and polite society, saying 
nothing of his having lied so mischievously that the Egyptian 
government drove him out of the country. . . . Jacob 
was an archaeological Brigham Young on an amateurish scale. 
. . . Joseph engineered a grain corner in Egypt of propor- 
tions so colossal as to put ' old Hutch ' altogether in the 
shade. . . . David was a murderer and adulterer. . . . 
Solomon maintained a harem so magnificently supplied that, 
in contrast with him, any modern Turk sinks into the purist 
monogamist." 

Are not our humane instincts outraged, and does not the 
cheek of innocence blush at the recital of how the troops of 
Moses were commanded by God ( !) to make war upon their 



RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 85 

unoffending neighbors, and to slay all the men and married 
women, but to take captive all the virgins ! 

The reader's patience would be wearied with a record of 
all the injustice, obscenity and immorality which is contained 
in what is termed the " Holy Bible.'' 

The Mormons defend the practice of polygamy by Bible 
quotations. The intemperate find Bible texts to encourage 
their intemperance. The effect of Bible teachings in sustain- 
ing slavery is shown in what Frederick Douglas has said : 
"We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for 
missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for members." 

It is presumed that it was the teachings of the " Word of 
God " which induced the Rev. Mr. Martin to become a Romish 
priest, to be converted to Protestantism, to marry, to be re- 
converted to Romanism, and then to abandon his wife and 
children. 

The Coreans have such respect for decency and virtue as to 
prohibit the landing of the Bible as an immoral book. 

A writer in the Arena, October, 18*90, says : " If the Bible 
was a translation of a sacred book of India, China or Egypt 
the whole Christian world would cry out against the publica- 
tion of some of its passages." 

Rev. George W. Buckley (author of ' ' Politics and Morals ") 
says, in allusion to certain questionable practices sanctioned 
by the Bible, " must not such a doctrine be pernicious to the 
morals of both old and young? Let us be rational enough 
and honest enough to condemn, without reservation, that 
which wounds the moral sentiment, however plainly declared 
by any book to be the word of God." 

The dogmas of salvation, through belief by faith, without 
evidence ; of the atonement, of eleventh-hour repentance, of 
rewards and punishments — not for right or wrong living, but 
for right or wrong believing — of predestination, of original 
sin, of total depravity, of infallible men and infallible books, 
of a God of partiality, of a devil with enormous power, are 
not only absurd but more or less immoral. 

Judge Westbrook, of Philadelphia, says : " The assurance 



86 RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 

of eternal salvation, through simple faith in vicarious atone- 
ment (so called) must have an immoral tendency. . . . 
What is called the scheme of redemption violates every 
principle of justice. . . . He is the greatest enemy of 
pure religion and public morality who would substitute blind 
faith for rational knowledge. ... In the Bible are 
maxims and examples which, if literally accepted and acted 
out as of divine authority, would spread moral mildew and 
red ruin in every direction." 

Helen H. Gardener says: "The precepts of Jehovah are 
taught every week from the pulpit and carefully legislated 
against every winter in congress. ' ' 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : ' ' Such theories as pre- 
destination and election have been, from first to last, fruitful 
sources of immorality. . . . There never was a doctrine 
broached that seemed so sure to breed moral pestilence as 
the doctrine of salvation by faith alone." 

Says another : ' ' Religion is impure and morality ignoble 
when recompense is the leading principle. . . . The 
theory of vicarious atonement destroys personal responsibility, 
the most essential element of moral character." 

"It appears to me one of the most immoral dogmas ever 
advanced that a man must believe anything without evidence 
to prove it." — (B. Russel.) 

' ' Virtue is far purer when practiced for its own sake than 
for a reward." — (Pompanatius.) 

"The death of dogma is the birth of morality." — (Kant.) 

The orthodox Christian Church gives dogma the first and 
morality the second place in the order of its teachings. 

"The callous indifference to essential morality is mainly 
attributable to the large place given to the exposition of 
theology. ' ' — (Wilbur Larremore. ) 

" Religious morality has resolved itself almost entirely into 
a matter of rites and ceremonial observances." — ( Westminster 
Review.} 

Religion has no necessary connection whatever with moral- 
ity. A person may be moral without being religious, and the 



RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 87 

reverse is true that a person may be religious without being 
moral. 

No more religious people live than the colored people of 
the South, and yet their religion does not stop their stealing 
chickens. 

Henry the VIII. was a religious, but not a moral, man. 

Froude, speaking of Labat, the pirate, tells of his saying 
his prayers just prior to his capturing a vessel. 

The cashier of a Louisville bank, who went to Canada 
with $70,000 of the bank's money, in March, 1890, took with 
him of his personal effects only his Bible and prayer-book. 

In the New York Tribtine of Feb. 13th, 1892, is an account 
of the capture of a burglar from whose pocket had dropped a 
prayer-book, on which was the name of the burglar. 

A servant of the writer, whose religion would not permit 
her sewing a button on a garment on Sunday, would steal 
brandy any week day. 

1 ' The Italian brigand rises from his knees before the Madonna 
to plunge his stiletto into the heart of the belated traveler." 
(Rev. R. Heber Newton.) 

Rev. Minot J. Savage says: " Through a large part of 
human history the intensely religious ages have not been 
distinguished for social purity, truth telling, honesty or 
justice." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : ' ' Marcus Aurelius was 
a better man than half the apostles." 

Buchner says: "The most religious times and countries 
have produced the greatest number of crimes and sins against 
the laws of morality, and, indeed, as daily experience teaches, 
still produce them." 

Warren G. Benton, in Popular Science Monthly, Nov., 1891, 
says : " The ages most noted for religious enthusiasm . . . 
were notoriously immoral." 

John Morley speaks of the absurdity of "building sound 
ethics on the shifting sands and rotting foundations of 
theology." 

The Religio- Philosophical Journal says : "With increasing 



50 RELIGION NOT MORALITY. 

intelligence morals steadily tend toward a non-theological 
basis." 

D'Holbach says : " To discuss the true principles of moral- 
ity, men have no need of theology, revelation, or of God." 

The Bishop of Hereford, in a Bampton lecture, remarked : 
"The principles of morality are founded in our nature, in- 
dependently of any system of religious belief." 

Rev. William Hayfes Ward, d. d., editor of the Independ- 
ent, says: "Morals and religion are two different things. 
Morals do not depend on God. Morals would exist if there 
were no God." 

There are many who believe not only that religion is not 
necessary to morality, but that it has been and is a positive 
hindrance to it. 

It certainly must be admitted that incentive to right-doing 
is higher and nobler when not urged by the religious idea of 
hope of reward or fear of punishment. 

George Eliot says : " I am influenced at the present time 
by far higher considerations and by a nobler idea of duty 
than I ever was when I held the Evangelical belief." 

,4 Duty is the whole of morality." — (Rev. Mark Hopkins, 

D. D.) 

14 1 never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one 
from any consideration of reward or punishment." — (Harriet 
Martineau.) 

44 1 ought, or I ought not, constitutes the whole of moral- 
ity." — (Darwin.) 

Christianity has of late years been more inclined to recog- 
nize the fact that people can be conscientious, upright, honor- 
able, humane, loving and moral without accepting any of the 
creeds of the churches. 

A few year since the Rev. Mr. Townsend, in a sermon at 
"All Angels Church," New York City, said: "There are 
men leading careful, irreproachable lives ; men who are 
refined and highly intellectual ; good husbands, good fathers, 
good brothers, valued and trusted throughout the commu- 
nities, who reject Christianity." 



THE TRINITY. 

PROBABLY very few Christians are aware that the doc- 
trine of the Trinity is a very ancient one ; that it 
existed long before the birth of Christianity ; that it (like 
nearly all of the signs, rites, ceremonies, observances and 
dogmas of the Christian Church) is of Pagan origin. Centuries 
before the Trinity of "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" was 
promulgated, there were believers in the Trinity of " Brahma, 
Vishnu and Siva," of "Osiris, Isis and Horus," of " Indra, 
Varnu and Agni," of "Odin, Vili and Ve," of " Mithra, 
Oromasdes and Ariman," of "Buddah, Dharmaand Sangha." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says : ' ' The doctrine of the Trinity 
is an Eastern speculation ; Christianity clothed itself in this 
ancient garb, betraying to him who knows the fabric of the 
East, the looms of Egypt and of India." 

Rev. Lyman Abbott says : " Traces of belief in the Trinity 
are to be found in the most heathen nations. It is discernible 
in Persian, Egyptian, Roman, Japanese and most of the 
ancient Grecian mythologies, and is very marked in Hindoo- 
ism." 

The following quotation from an ancient Hindoo poet will 
show how closely the ancient and modern idea of the Trinity 
correspond : 

"In those three persons the one God was shown, 
Each first in place, each last, not one alone ; 
Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be 
First, second, third, among the blessed three." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke speaks of the adoption by 
Christianity of " the Platonic and Egyptian Trinity." 

Winwood Reade speaks of "the Trinity which the Egyp- 

(89) 



90 THE TRINITY. 

tians had invented and which Plato had idealized into a 
philosophical system." 

Rev. Andrews Norton says : ' ' We can trace the history 

of this doctrine (of the Trinity) and discover its source — not 

in the Christian revelation — but in the Platonic philosophy, 

introduced into the Christian religion by the Fathers 

of the Church." 

The doctrine of the Trinity, in its relation to Christianity, 
was utterly unknown in the first century of the Christian Era, 
and (says the late Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D.) was " in- 
vented by theologians in the second century." 

The first use of the word Trinity, by Christians, that we 
find, is by Theophilus, in the later part of the second century. 

Tertulian introduced the idea of the Trinity into theology 
about the year 200. 

C. B. Waite says : " The doctrine of the Trinity was not a 
belief in the first two centuries." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: "For more than two 
centuries after the death of Jesus it remained doubtful 
whether he was to be regarded as a human or a divine being." 

Even so truly orthodox an authority as the Rev. Wm. G. 
T. Shedd, D. D., says : "The doctrine (of the Trinity) did 
not contain a technical construction in the first two centuries 
and a half." 

John Fiske places the first announcement of the doctrine of 
the Trinity in 250 to 260. 

Rev. Philip Schaff, d. d., says: "The doctrine of the 
divinity of Christ was but imperfectly developed in the anti- 
Nicene period." 

Cardinal Manning says : " The creeds of that early day (in 
the first three centuries) make no mention in their letter of 
the doctrine (of the Trinity) at all. They make mention, in- 
deed, of a three ; but that they are co-equal — co-eternal, is 
not stated and never could be gathered from them. 

According to Mosheim the doctrine of the Trinity was in an 
undeveloped state in the third century, when several different 
opinions or theories were advanced regarding the doctrine. 



THE TRINITY. 91 

The views held by Noetus Sabillius and Manes were some- 
what in the nature of compromises between Arianism and 
Athanasianism. 

According to Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, the doctrine of the 
Trinity (as enunciated by Athanasius) was not promulgated 
till the fourth century. 

Petavius (R. C. ) in his celebrated work on the Trinity (17th 
century) says : " Concerning the three persons of the divinity 
nothing was fully written or known before the Council of 
Nice" — 325. At which Council three persons in godhead 
are declared a fundamental article of faith. 

Rev. Andrews Norton says : ' ' The doctrine of Athanasius 
concerning the Trinity was established by the Council of 
Nice. . . . The doctrine of the incarnation continued in 
an unsettled state till the fourth century." He also tells us 
that the subject of the personality and divinity of the Holy 
Spirit was undetermined until the Council of Constantinople 

-383. 

Professor Sparks says that the Deity of the Holy Spirit was 
not formally decreed till the Council of Constantinople. 

The doctrine of the Trinity rests on the supposition that 
Christ was not the son of Joseph, and on the (absurd) as- 
sumption that he was w;znaturally born (of a virgin). 

But, " what saith the Scriptures? " 

In Matthew i : 16, we read of "Joseph, the husband of 
Mary, of whom Jesus was born." 

Luke iii : 23, speaks of "Jesus the son of Joseph." 

In John i : 45, we read of "Jesus of Nazareth the son of 
Josephs 

If it be true, as Matthew says it is, that Joseph was Mary's 
(only) husband, it is not only unreasonable but highly im- 
proper to assume that Joseph was not the father of Jesus ; 
and if Luke and John's records be true, the question is 
settled that Jesus was the son of Joseph. 

Rev. John W. Chad wick has very properly intimated that 
it is an insult to the memory of Mary and a stigma upon her 
chastity to deny that Joseph was the father of Jesus. 



92 THE TRINITY. 

In further corroboration of this position, we read in Luke, 
chap, ii, that Jesus, having been absent from home for three 
days, his parents went in search of him and, having found 
him, Mary administered a rebuke to him for his absence, 
adding, "Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." 
Christ himself never claimed a miraculous birth. 

Kersey Graves says : " We find the story of the immaculate 
conception resting entirely upon the slender foundation com- 
prised in the legends of an angel and a dream. We are told 
that Mary got it by an angel and Joseph by a dream ; and 
through these sources we have the whole ground work of the 
story of the divinity of Christ." 

It was usual to claim virgin births for founders of reli- 
gions. Such claims were made for Zoroaster, Buddah, 
Chrisna, Quenxalcote, Hesus and many others, as well as for 
Pythagoras, Arion, Plato, Yu, Appolonius Tyanneus and 
others of prominence in ancient times. 

The Christian ''Scheme of Salvation" is supported by 
the double claim that Christ had no natural father and that he 
was (in the male line) of the lineage of David. 

Both cannot be true. 

The Truth Seeker says : " If Joseph was his (Jesus) father, 
the lack of divine parentage vitiates the whole Christian 
scheme. If the Holy Ghost was his father then he was not 
of the house of David, which again vitiates the scheme." 

There seems the strongest possible evidence from the utter- 
ances and doings of those who knew Jesus best that the claim 
for his divinity is unsubstantiated. 

In Matt, xxiii : 55, the significant enquiry is made, "Is 
not this (Jesus) the carpenter's son ? " 

John (vii : 5) says : " For neither did his brethren (James, 
Joseph, Simon and Judas) believe on him." 

Of his own disciples Thomas doubted him, Peter denied 
him and Judas betrayed him, and, finally, says Matthew 
(xxvi : 56), " all the disciples forsook him and fled." 

If, in his own generation, his most intimate friends and his 
nearest of kin refused to believe on his being a third of the 



THE TRINITY. 93 

Trinity, why should it be expected that nearly two thousand 
years thereafter those who knew of him only by tradition 
should so believe ? 

A few years since I had a conversation with a professor 01 
theology in Princeton Seminary who I had heard preach a 
sermon, in which he insisted upon the truth of the dogma of 
Christ's virgin birth. I asked him how he reconciled this 
theological dogma with the record of the genealogy of Christ 
as found in Matthew and in Luke, in both of which accounts 
the genealogy is brought down from David through Joseph to 
Christ. His reply was that he did not know it (did not know 
that his genealogy came through Joseph). In other words he 
was ignorant of that upon which the whole fabric of his 
theology rested until I told him ! That professor is now 
president of Princeton University. 

The human (the humane) character of Jesus far transcends 
that upon which theologians insist upon in his (supposed) re- 
lation to Deity. As Winwood Reade has said, "Hewasa 
man of the people, a rustic and an artisan. . . . He was 
led to take the part of the poor. He sympathized deeply 
with the outcasts, the afflicted and oppressed. To children 
and to women, to all who suffered and shed tears, to all from 
whom men turned with loathing and contempt, to the girl of 
evil life, ... to the sorrowful in spirit and the weak in 
heart, to the weary and heavy laden, Jesus appeared as a 
shining angel with words sweet as the honey-comb and bright 
as the golden day. He laid his hands on the head of the lowly 
and bade the sorrowful be of good cheer. 

What a contrast is such a gentle being with that merciless 
existence — the sole creation of theology — which could say : 
11 He that believeth not shall be damned," or " Depart from 
me into everlasting fire." 

The importance to orthodox theology of the dogma of the 
Trinity is thus explained by Rev. O. B. Frothingham : "To 
deny the Trinity is to deny the deity of Christ ; to deny the 
deity of Christ is to deny the sufficiency of his atonement ; to 
deny the atonement is to deny the need of man ; to deny the 



94 THE TRINITY. 

need of man is to deny the necessity of grace, to vacate the 
offices of the church and to reduce to nothing the significance of 
Christendom. ' ' 

The conception of the Trinity has differed greatly in different 
minds and in different ages. The creed of Athanasius says : 
" The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Chost is God, 
and yet there are not three gods, but one God." 

Gregory Nyssen, Cyril of Alexandria, and others regard 
the Trinity as composed of three individuals "as distinct as 
Peter, James and John." 

The orthodox theologians of the present day explain with 
perfect clearness (to their own minds) that there are "three 
persons in one God, but that these three persons are not 
three individual beings or separate existences, but three ' ' es- 
sences" (or constituent substances) similar in nature, which 
similitude of nature and of essence constitutes the one God. 

Rev. Lyman Abbott says : " Precisely what the doctrine of 
the Trinity is, or rather how it is to be explained, Trinitarians 
are not agreed among themselves." 

Rev. Andrews Norton says : ' ' The ancient opinions con- 
cerning the Trinity (before the Council of Nice) were very 
different from the modern doctrine" — which, according to 
Cudworth, was established by the fourth general Lateran 
Council — 1 215. 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says of the doctrine of the Trinity 
that ' ' it should not be accepted in the form held by the 
conventional Christian, but in that which is held by the 
philosophic mind of to-day." 

It is a very significant fact that the text ' ' There are three 
that bear record in heaven — the Father, the Word and the 
Holy Ghost, and these three are one " — 1 John v : 7 (and from 
which text millions of sermons, to prove by the Scriptures the 
truth of the doctrine of the Trinity, have been preached) is 
omitted in the ' ' revised edition. ' ' 

The word " Trinity " occurs nowhere in the Bible. 

Sacrobuscus (R, C.) says: "The Arians were not con- 
demned by the Scriptures but by tradition. ' ' 



THE TRINITY. 95 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : " You will scarcely find 
a minister of the Church of England who will admit that he 
believes the Athanasian creed, and yet no conve?itio?i of that 
body has ever been willing to surrender it. . . . We 
recently saw an account of a discussion in the House of. 
Bishops of the Church of England on a proposition to dis- 
continue the use of the Athanasian creed in the church 
service. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave as a reason 
for retaining it that no one believed it and so it could do no 
harm. ' ' 

Archbishop Tillotson said of the Athanasian creed that he 
wished the Church of England " were well rid of it." 

Rev. Dr. South says : ''Men cannot persuade themselves 
that Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence should 
have been wrapt in swaddling clothes. ' ' 

Rev. Andrews Norton says: "The creed attributed to 
Athanasius (a spurious work of some unknown writer) seems 
to have been formed in the delirium of folly, but is now the 
professed faith of a great portion of Protestants. . . . 
The Eternal Three ! The Deity an infant ! God bleeding 
and thereby appeasing heaven ! The monster legends of 
Hindoo superstition present nothing more revolting." 

Lord Bacon thus describes a Trinitarian's belief: "He 
believes a virgin to be the mother of a Son who is her 
maker. That He, whom heaven and earth could not contain 
was shut up in a narrow room. That He, who is from ever- 
lasting, was born in time That He, who is the Almighty, was 
carried in arms. That He, who only had life and immortality, 
had died." 

Bacon further defines a Trinitarian to be one who believes 
"three to be one and one to be three." 

Rev. Dr. Channing speaks of the "bad arithmetic of the 
doctrine of the Trinity." 

L. K. Washburn says : " Who believes in the Trinity must 
hate the multiplication table." 

Rev. J. M. Capes, of the Church of England, says : "To 



96 THE TRINITY. 

say that a being can be both three and one, at the same time, 
is simply a falsehood." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says: "The three — one God — 
but neither one of them the other." 

The difficult feat of transcorporation, of three persons with 
one, is called by another writer, " Theological legerdemain." 

What a grotesque description is that by Mr. Raymond S. 
Perrin of a painting of the Trinity by Pesello, 1442, in the 
National Gallery of London, " God is presented — wearing a 
hat somewhat resembling that of the Pope — in a sitting 
posture, holding in his hands the cross on which Jesus is 
nailed. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, rests upon 
the bosom of the Father and watches the Son." 

And now that the doctrine of eternal punishment has been 
condemned by the enlightened sentiment of the age ; that the 
belief in a god of personality has given place to that of im- 
manence or transcendent intelligence, or that God and nature 
are interchangeable terms ; that heaven is no longer a place 
but a "condition;" that the devil is an evil influence and 
not a personal being ; that the six days of creation have ex- 
panded into six periods of time ; that the age of the world, 
instead of six thousand years, geology teaches, is nearer six 
millions of years ; that the heliocentric has supplanted the 
geocentric system of astronomy ; that chemistry has verified 
the eternal existence of matter ; that Darwin and Haeckel are 
now more acceptable as teachers of biology than Moses ; that 
the Biblical story of universal creation has become merged in 
the grand and scientific truth which the theory of evolution 
has unfolded and demonstrated ; that the dogmas of original 
sin, total depravity, Predestination, Election, Partialism, 
Preteriton, of an inerrant book and of an infallible man, 
have adherents only among the most credulous ; that belief in 
parthenogenesis and anthropomorphism is rejected by all 
who recognize the invariability of natural law and who make 
use of their thinking faculties ; that the doctrines of the in- 
carnation, atonement, resurrection and ascension are being 
repudiated by the more rational thought of the day ; that the 



THE TRINITY. 97 

traditions, legends, fables, myths, superstitions and miracles 
of the Bible are daily finding fewer believers ; now that all 
these and other false assumptions — the heritage of an ignorant 
past — are fast fading from view, may we not hope that the un- 
reasonable, the absurd, the Pagan-born dogma of the Trinity 
will also be, soon (to quote Rev. W. H. H. Murray, d. d.) 
" relegated to the limbo into which are flung the (other) cast- 
off garments of vagabond theories." 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 

THE general impression is that civil liberty and religious 
liberty are (as it were), twin sisters, both animated by 
a common purpose and actuated by a. desire to aid each 
other in securing and maintaining those equitable rights which 
are the natural heritage of all, without regard to differences of 
opinion on matters political, economical or religious. The 
twin sister representing religious liberty, however, has not 
had the same regard for the rights of its twin sister represent- 
ing civil liberty as is supposed. While civil liberty recognizes 
the equal rights of all, irrespective of opinion, religious liberty 
(or its votaries), limits these rights to those who adopt the 
religion which religious people have " liberty" to profess 
and practice ; in other words, the advocates of religious 
liberty deny civil liberty to all those who decline to accept 
any of the tolerated religions, claiming that such persons 
"have no rights which 'religious people' are bound to 
respect." Thus we have religious liberty, but not civil liberty. 

Noah Webster defines ' ' civil liberty " as ' * exemption from 
arbitrary interference with person, opinion or property on the 
part of the government under which one lives." Taking this 
as its true meaning, the question may be seriously and anxiously 
asked — have we civil liberty in this country ? 

Have we that civil liberty which claims exemption from 
"arbitrary interference" with our persons when we are 
compelled to ' ' observe ' ' (as religious fanaticism calls it) a 
certain day of the week and abstain from occupation, recrea- 
tion or pleasure on that day ? 

Have we that civil liberty which demands exemption from 

arbitrary interference with our opinions when our children 

(98) 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 99 

in the public schools (supported by general tax) are given 
religious instruction which their parents regard as so much 
useless or baneful superstition ? A further arbitrary inter- 
ference with our opinions is shown where testimony of a 
a witness is rejected because he refuses to believe in the in- 
spiration of a certain book, or in a future state of punishment. 

Have we that civil liberty w^hich grants exemption from 
arbitrary interference with our property when we are com- 
pelled by law to contribute our money (thro' the tax levy) 
toward appropriations for sectarian institutions ; for payment 
of chaplains in our prisons, in congress, in the army and 
navy ; and to supplement the amount rendered necessary by 
reason of the exemption of church property from taxation ? 
Surely not. 

It would be quite as proper and as just had the opponents 
of Sunday observance the power, for them to enact a law 
fining and imprisoning people for preaching or praying on 
Sunday, as it is now to likewise punish for working or playing 
on that day. The arrest and imprisonment of citizens who 
(though thoroughly religious and many of them Christians) 
do not believe in Sunday observance is as arbitrary and 
tyrannical as any act that history records. Three Baptists 
(who observe religiously the seventh day of the week) have 
been for months languishing in a prison in Tennessee for the 
crime (!) of attending to their gardens or performing some 
ordinary farm duties on Sunday. Think of this in this land 
which boasts of civil liberty ! 

There is no greater denial of civil liberty than the exclusion 
from the world's fair of millions of our citizens on the only day 
of the week they can visit it, because (forsooth) certain 
religious fanatics regard it as a sacred day. 

The danger to civil liberty in the matter of religious teach- 
ing in our public schools is recognized even by the clergy. 
The late Rev. Howard Crosby, D. D., said : "There is no 
safety for our country but in non-sectarian (elementary) edu- 
cation." 

The sentiment of all intelligent, reflecting and just persons 



IOO CIVIL LIBERTY. 

is that of a firm opposition to contributing, either directly or 
indirectly, by the State, in support of any religious institu- 
tions. The system of exempting church property from taxa- 
tion is an indirect method of appropriating money for the 
support of places of worship. Many of the clergy who believe 
in civil liberty as a principle boldly denounce this exemption. 
Rev. Dr. Shipman of Christ Church, New York city, says : 
" That which is protected by government may justly be com- 
pelled to maintain it. I would like to see all church property 
throughout the land taxed to the last dollar's worth. The 
Church may fight this question, but sooner or later, the battle 
will go against it, and its retreat will not be only with dented, 
armor but with banners soiled." 

Judge Story, of the U. S. Supreme Court, says (in the 
Gerard will case): " The Constitution of 1790 and the like 
permission will, in substance, be found in the Constitution of 
1776, and the existing Constitution of 1838 expressly declares 
that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or sup- 
port-any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against 
his consent. ... It must have been intended to extend 
equally to all sects, whether they believe in Christianity or not 
and whether they are Jews or Infidels." 

To the honor of those branches of the Christian Church 
known as Baptists and Methodists, be it known, that they have 
declined to accept the money appropriated by the general 
government for religious instruction among the Indians, on 
the ground that the government has no business whatever to 
make such appropriations. 

Sunday laws, appointments of religious and fast days, and 
of chaplains ; the requirements of oaths and religious teach- 
ings in our public schools ; sectarian appropriations of money 
and exemption of church property from taxation — all are 
clearly interferences with that civil liberty which grants equal 
privileges and imparts equal justice to all — to the religious and 
to those who make no profession of religion. 

The Constitution of the United States says: "Congress 
shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion," 



CIVIL LIBERTY. IOI 

and yet, in the face of this section and in utter disregard of 
it, there is a virtual establishment of the Christia?i religio?i, as 
is shown (for instance) by its recognition in the religious 
services had at the opening of each day's session of Congress. 

The Constitution also says: il No religious test shall be 
required as a qualification to any office, and yet no person will 
be permitted to fill certain offices, unless they take a pre- 
scribed oath as a test of belief in a particular religion. 

The State of New York (among other States) has a law 
positively prohibiting appropriations of any money for sect- 
arian purposes, and yet such appropriations are annually made 
in addition to indirect contributions for the support of 
churches by exempting church property from the operation of 
a uniform tax law. 

What a mockery to claim that we have civil liberty in this 
country ! Christianity, by its intolerant spirit and its impudent 
assumption of superior knowledge and superior goodness, has 
robbed us of this boon. 

When I speak of Christianity and of Christians, I make an 
exception in favor of many unpretentious, tolerant, liberal- 
minded and justice-loving believers in that faith. From such 
come honorable protests against invasions of civil liberty. 

Rev. I. L. Wilkinson, d. d. (Baptist) says : " Ours is a 
civil government, strictly and exclusively ; its jurisdiction ex- 
tends only over civil affairs. A Christian government implies 
a State religion. Religious liberty does not mean liberty for 
the Christian religion alone." 

Bishop Venner says: "The mixing up of politics with 
religion under any circumstances, is fraught with manifold 
and multiform dangers. There is no tyranny so cruel, no yoke 
so intolerable, as priestcraft when vested with temporal author- 
ity. More political atrocities, butcheries, crimes and enormi- 
ties have been committed in the name and on account of 
religion than have arisen from any and all other causes com- 
bined." 

Advocates of civil liberty in all ages and in all lands have 
uttered their protests against the domination of the Church. 



102 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Christ's injunction — "Render unto Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's " — is a precept which the Christian Church daily 
repudiates. 

Edward I. of England caused taxes to be levied on the 
clergy on the (true) principle that those who are protected by 
the State should share its burdens. 

J. L. M. Curry, in Johnson's Encyclopedia (article "Relig- 
ious Liberty") says: "Unfortunately, Constantine, in 313, 
established Christianity by law, and since that time Christians, 
when they have obtained power, have allied their religion with 
civil authorities." 

The Jewish Times, in a recent article on sectarian enactments 
(such as Sunday, oath and blasphemy laws) and of the relig- 
ious intolerance and fanaticism which has injected them into 
our politics, says : " There is not one of these enactments that 
may not on any day be invoked -against citizens who do not 
profess the Christian religion. The Adventists, Jews, Agnos- 
tics and the great body of rationalists at large have not the 
equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution that Christians 
have. ' ' 

John Stuart Mill says : " Mankind could be no more 
justified in silencing the honest opinion of one person than 
that one person would, had he the power, be justified in 
silencing the opinion of mankind." And yet, here in this 
country, where civil liberty is supposed to abound more ex- 
tensively than in any other, there are millions of people whose 
opinions are silenced by the noisy, dogmatic, bigoted per- 
secuting upholders of the Christian Church. 

Civil liberty exists in this country to a very limited degree 
and it will so continue as long as this domineering, tyrannical 
and unjust Christian Church is permitted to rob us of our civil 
rights. 

The late Rev. Henry J. VanDyke, d. d. (Presbyterian) had 
the courage to say : "If we cannot have liberty and ortho- 
doxy, let orthodoxy go." And so let us say that if we cannot 
have religion and liberty let religion go. If religious liberty 
endangers civil lilberty let religious liberty go by all means f 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 103 

for we can easily dispense with the latter, but will be remanded 
to dark and barbarous ages if civil liberty be denied us. 

Mrs. M. A. Freeman, Cor. Sec. American Secular Union, 
writes : " The people have permitted various privileges to the 
Church. It has become arrogant with the granting of them 
and follows but the course of bigotry in all ages. It is not 
satisfied with the various priestly perquisites it enjoys, but, 
throwing aside all disguise, demands for its divinities the na- 
tion itself." 

The granting of religious liberty, at the expense of civil 
liberty, in the days of Thomas Paine, had this effect (says 
Col. Ingersoll) : " All kinds of Christians had the right — and 
it was their duty — to brand, imprison and kill infidels of every 
kind." 

There has been no greater enemy of civil liberty than the 
Christian Church, from the fourth century (when it became 
ascendant) even to the present time, during which period it 
has caused the shedding of rivers of human blood, in its hatred 
of and conflict with, civil liberty. 

We boast of civil liberty in this country, seeming to forget 
that we are denied every civil right except such as the Church 
permits. 

How long is this condition of things to last? Will the 
Church grow wise enough, in the near future, to recognize our 
rights and cease its opposition thereto, or will the time come 
when the lovers of civil liberty will demand the possession of 
those rights, at whatever cost? for the spirit of the age insists 
that we have true, pure, unmingled civil liberty. 



MIRACLES. 

" It is more probable that testimony should be mistaken than that 
miracles should be true." — Hume. 

" It is a waste of time to regard any miraculous reports as even 
possibly true." — Rev.J.M. Capes. 

THE importance of the subject of miracles is apparent when 
the fact exists that it is by miracles, and by miracles 
alone, that orthodox Christianity is supported. Think of a 
religion that is sustained only by belief in violations of the 
laws of Nature ; which laws every scientist of note the world 
over declare, are immutable ! The whole immense fabric of 
Christianity is built upon miraculous records, such as the story 
of creation, of the fall of man, of the deluge, of Jonah, Joshua, 
Baalam, Daniel, the three men in the fiery furnace, of the 
raising of Lazarus, the turning of water into wine, the feeding 
of the multitude, the virgin birth, resurrection and ascension 
of Christ. These and other violations of natural law are the 
props by which Christianity is maintained and without which 
it would speedily totter to its fall. 

We may then well ask for the evidence of this sustaining 
power. Where is it to be found ? Is there one single instance 
in which there is the slightest reliable evidence of the perform- 
ance of a solitary miracle? Is there a particle of testimony 
such as would be entertained, for even a second, in any court 
of justice, throughout the civilized world ? 

Besides, as Rev. Howard McQueary has said : " An extra- 
ordinary event should be proved by an extraordinary amount, 
of evidence." 

Rev. W. S. Crowe says of the miracles attributed to Christ : 

"We have only the testimony of partisans. In no unbiased 

(io 4 ) 



MIRACLES. . 105 

secular record is there a word of corroboration. Of the par- 
tisans themselves we have not the testimony of a single eye 
witness. We have not one authentic word from the generation 
to which Jesus belonged. * * * The Christian churches 
were founded and were flourishing throughout Palestine and 
the whole Roman Empire belore anyone seemed to think of 
putting the miracle foundation under them. * * * The 
miracles, if facts, would ruin all claims to benevolence in the 
founder of Christianity. The man who has power to heal 
every disease and to raise the dead, by a touch or a word, 
and who, in the course of his entire life only exercises that 
power in a few isolated instances, is worthy rather of the exe- 
cration than the gratitude of mankind." 

The late Rev. Albert Barnes (Presbyterian, of Philadelphia) 
says : ' ' An important question is whether there is any 
stronger evidence in favor of miracles than there is in favor of 
witchcraft, sorcery, reappearance of the dead, ghosts or ap- 
paritions ; and if so, in what respect is the evidence in favor 
of the miracles of the Bible stronger than that which can be 
adduced in favor of witchcraft and sorcery ? Has not the evi- 
dence in favor of these latter been derived from as competent 
and reliable witnesses as that in favor of miracles ? Has not 
the evidence in favor of witchcraft and sorcery had, what the 
evidence in favor of miracles has not had, the advantage of a 
strict judicial investigation ? Have not the most eminent 
judges, in the most civilized and enlightened courts of Europe 
and America, admitted the force of such evidence (in favor of 
witchcraft and sorcery,) and on the ground of it committed 
great numbers of innocent persons to the gallows and to the 
stake?" 

Judge Richard B. Westbrook, of Philadelphia, says : " The 
miracles claimed for the New Testament failed to convince the 
people, among whom they are said to have been wrought, of 
the divine mission of Jesus and his apostles, as shown by the 
treatment they received. * * * Miracles, sorcery and 
witchcraft were always based on the delusions of ignorance 
and superstition." 



106 MIRACLES. 

11 Miracles resolve themselves into the question whether it 
is more probable that the laws of Nature, hitherto so immu- 
tably harmonious, should have undergone violation ; or that 
a man should have told a lie. We have many instances of 
men telling lies, none of an infraction of natural laws." 
(Shelley.) 

"I have known theologians, occupying the highest posi- 
tions in the Church, who frankly admitted among their own 
intimate friends, that physical miracles were impossible." 
(Max Muller.) 

" Doubt of miracle is faith in the eternal order of Nature." 
(Lewis G. Janes.) 

" Miracle is the negative of law." — (J. W. Chadwick.) 

"When miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation 
is out of the question." — (Kepler.) . 

■ ' To exclude from history every event of a miraculous char- 
acter is an absolute rule of criticism." — (Renan.) 

"The world has trusted in the doctrine of miracle-mongers 
till skepticism became a condition of self-preservation." 
(Felix S. Oswald.) 

"Miracles exist only for him who has not studied them." 
(Systeme de la Nature.) 

" Science demands the radical extirpation of caprice and 
the absolute reliance upon law in Nature." — (Tyndall.) 

Hon. Andrew D. White expresses his disbelief in miracles 
in speaking of " that vast power which works in the universe 
in all things by law and in none by caprice." 

As illustrating how insincere were some of the church 
fathers, in their pretended belief in miracles and in practising 
imposition on the ignorant, we quote from St. Chrysostom's 
writings (fourth century:) "Miracles are proper only to 
excite sluggish and vulgar minds ; men of sense have no 
occasion for them." 

"In our own time one of the most eminent and gifted of the 
prelates of the Romish Church, has expressed more or less* 
distrust regarding miracles. The late Cardinal John Henry 
Newman said : "It is doubtless the tendency of religious 



MIRACLES. . IO7 

minds to imagine mysteries and wonders where there are none. 
* * # The imagination is a fruitful cause of apparent mira- 
cles. * * * There have been at all times true miracles and 
false miracles. * * * No authoritative guide is supplied to 
us for drawing the line between the two." 

In Supernatural Religion, vol. ii, p. 478, we read : " Even 
if the reality of miracles could be substantiated, their value, as 
evidence for the divine revelation, is destroyed by the neces- 
sary admission that miracles are not limited to one source, but 
that there are miracles satanic, which are to be disbelieved, as 
well as divine." 

In Matthew xxiv : 24, it says : ' ' There shall arise false 
prophets, who shall show great signs and wonders." If signs 
and wonders — miracles — are a test of true divinity, why are 
not these so-called " false prophets " divine ? 

In Mark viii : 12, Christ is made to say : " There shall be 
no sign given unto this generation." And yet it is by signs 
and miracles that the Christian Church claims the divine char- 
acter of Jesus. 

It is a matter of history that the age of the Apostles was 
one in which the most miraculous stories gained credence, and 
where ' ' little if any radical distinction was drawn between a 
miracle and an ordinary occurrence." — (John Fiske.) 

The miracles upon which the Christian religion mainly relies 
for its support are those of the virgin birth, resurrection and 
ascension of Christ. The first of these (claimed also for every 
other founder of a religion,) is of course so utterly opposed to 
natural law that no person who is familiar with such law, and 
who thinks, will for one moment entertain the thought of its 
being possibly true. As to the resurrection, it is quite safe 
to say that not a jparticle of reliable evidence has ever been 
produced in support of such claim. Rev. R. Heber Newton 
says : " Most thoughtful men recognize that any such resur- 
rection of the body (as is largely believed in) demands a mir- 
acle of such magnitude as is utterly unbelievable by the average 
man." As to the ascension, to where did Jesus ascend? If 
you point your finger upwards at twelve meridian, it points in 



108 MIRACLES. 

one direction ; keep it thus pointed till twelve midnight, and 
it points in exactly an opposite direction. There is no " up " 
or " down" — no ascension or descension — where the law of 
gravity holds sway, in this universe of circling spheres ; no 
place whatever, in all probability, to which Enoch, or Elijah, 
or Jesus could, by any possibility, have been translated. 

T. W. Doane, in his immensely valuable work called Bible 
Myths, shows an almost complete parallel between the miracles 
of Christ and those of Chrishna and Buddha ; healing the sick, 
restoring the maimed, the deaf and the blind, raising the dead 
and other miracles attributed to Christ, are all to be found in 
the histories of those two incarnations of Deity who flourished 
respectively 1,200 and 600 years B. C. 

Miracles similar to those which Christ is said to have per- 
formed, were claimed for Zoroaster, Bochia, Horus, Serapis, 
Mardeck, Esculapius, Appolonius of Tyana, Simon Magus, 
Menander, Vespasian and others. 

" The Gospel miracles are set in the midst of a series of 
similar wonders which commenced many centuries before the 
dawn of Christianity. " — {Supernatural Religion. ) 

Hon. Andrew D. White says that " in the sixteenth century 
such miracles as healing the sick, the miraculous draft of 
fishes, raising the dead and the resurrection, were attributed 
to Francis Zavier." 

The Romish Church claims that miracles are still being per- 
formed, but the Protestant Church says " the days of miracles 
are past." The former is certainly the most consistent, for it 
is more reasonable to suppose that if miracles were ever per- 
formed they are quite as likely to be performed to-day as at 
any time in the past. The miracles that it is claimed are being . 
performed now are quite as well authenticated as the miracles 
in which Protestants believe. 

Professor Baden Powell illustrates the position of the Pro- 
testant Church in saying : ' ' At the present day, it is not a 
miracle, but the narrative of a miracle to which faith is ac- 
corded." 

It must be admitted, however, that the Roman Church de- 



MIRACLES. log 

rives a splendid income by reason of the position it takes on 
this question. Enormous sums of money are constantly being 
raised out of the superstitious, in all parts of the Catholic 
world, by pretended miracles, performed by so-called holy 
relics. In May, 1892, the miracle claimed to have been per- 
formed by a supposed bone of St. Ann, in New York city, 
yielded the handsome profit of $1,000 per day for sixteen 
days, in one church alone. Very properly did the dis- 
tinguished member of the New York bar, John D. Townsend, 
Esq., recently ask the question, in a letter to the New York 
Herald, that if Madame Dis Debar was justly punished for 
obtaining money on the false pretense that the pictures with 
which she supplied the art gallery of Mr. Marsh were painted 
by the spirits of the " old masters," why should not like pun- 
ishment be meted out to such priests as obtain money, from 
the ignorant, credulous and superstitious, on equally false 
pretenses ? 

Both Catholics and Protestants, however, profess belief in 
the miracles recorded in the Bible. Take, for example, the 
one recorded in Matthew xxvii : 51-53: "The earth did 
quake, and the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened, 
and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out 
of their graves and went into the holy city, and appeared unto 
many." Just analyze this record for a moment — calmly con- 
sider it — and you cannot help saying that such a statement is 
absolutely impossible of belief. Imagine, if you can, the sur- 
prise of the people living in the "holy city" having visits, 
" all of a sudden," from the " many bodies of the saints," the 
recent tenants of the grave ! We are not informed as to what 
welcome the bodies of the saints received, how long their 
visits were continued, or to where they went on leaving. No 
wonder that intelligent people are refusing to believe such im- 
possible recitals. No wonder that (even) Christian clergymen' 
are daily repudiating belief in such incredible records, and 
forcing from them such declarations as that from the Rev. 
J. H. Rylance, viz : " All notions of the miraculous character 
of the Bible has been almost wholly banished from us." 



IIO MIRACLES. 

In Supernatural Religion it is stated that "the great ma- 
jority of modern German Biblical critics reject the miraculous 
altogether. * * * As a historical fact there is nothing 
more certain than that miracles, and the belief in them, disap- 
peared exactly when education and knowledge of the opera- 
tions of natural laws became diffused throughout Europe." 

Dr. Oort says : "Our increased knowledge of Nature has 
gradually undermined the belief in the possibility of miracles, 
and the time is not far distant when, in the mind of every man 
of culture, all accounts of miracles will be banished to their 
proper region — chat of legend." 

But why try to penetrate the supernatural (if such there 
be ?) Is there not enough in the natural to excite our wonder ? 
What more marvelous, or seemingly marvelous, than Nature 
herself? Why indulge in the recital of impossible stories of 
the (supposed) preter-natural, when the story of Nature is so 
inconceivably greater and grander? Talk of the inexplica- 
bility of miracles, which are but pretended violations of the 
laws of Nature ; when the laws of Nature themselves are far 
more inexplicable. The revelations of the telescope and the 
microscope are infinitely more wonderful than all the miracu- 
lous revelations claimed for the Bible. The knowledge of the 
material world, imparted by Kepler, Newton, Humboldt and 
Darwin, far transcends in importance (as well as in truth,) all 
the (pretended) knowledge of the zw-material world, supposed 
to be miraculously revealed by prophets, apostles, evangel- 
ists and church "fathers." There is far more of inspiration 
in the one " book of nature" than in all the books of the Old 
and New Testament. The miraculous accounts by Moses, in- 
troducing us to the geology, astronomy and biology of six 
thousand years ago, are completely superseded by the more 
modern and more truthful teachings of science. The story of 
evolution is far more ennobling (in addition to its having become 
an established fact) than that of a miraculous creation. The 
marvel ofbirth^ physical growth and intellectual development, 
towers grandly above the juggling tricks which are known as 
miracles. All these teachings of the Bible inculcate belief in 



MIRACLES. Ill 

useless fables, myths and miracles instead of in helpful facts, 
truths and natural causes. Miracles, and belief in them are 
utterly out of place in this age of scientific investigation and 
of the knowledge of cause and effect. 

"When I consider that without a miracle the stars swing in 
their circles, that without a miracle seed-time and harvest keep 
their punctual round, that without a miracle the immanent 
life climbed from the fiery mist of worlds unmade to all their 
myriad shapeliness and interacting harmony, to mineral and 
vegetable and animal life, and from the wallowing saurain to 
the man or woman whom you love — when I consider all these 
things, I must confess it seems to me a little less than blas- 
phemous to suggest that the power which is equal to them all 
is not equal to the development of humanity from any possible 
depth to any possible height, by methods as serene as those 
which keep the stars from wandering, or convert the substance 
of the planet into human smiles and tears." — (Rev. John W. 
Chadwick.) 



SUNDAY. 

PROBABLY very few Christians are aware of the fact 
that what they call the ' ' Christian Sabbath ' ' is (like 
almost everything pertaining to Christianity) of Pagan 
origin. 

The first observance of Sunday that history records is in the 
fourth century, when Constantine issued an edict {not requiring 
its religious observance, but simply abstinence from work) 
reading, " Let all the judges and people of the town rest and 
all the various trades be suspended on the venerable day of the 
Sun." At the time of the issue of this edict, Constantine was 
a Sun-worshipper ; therefore it could have had no relation 
whatever to Christianity. 

Dean Stanley says : " Our present legal institution of Sun- 
day was appointed by Constantine' s authority, but not as a 
Christian Sabbath. ' ' 

Rev. A. H. Lewis, d. d., says : " Constantine was a well- 
known devotee of the Sun-God, as were his predecessors. 
His attitude towards Christianity was that of a shrewd politician. 
Towards his rivals that of an unscrupulous, bloody-handed 
monarch. He gained power by intrigue, deceit and murder. 
No accurate historian dares call him a Christian emperor. 
He refused to unite with the Church until on his death-bed," 

(337)- 

Rev. Philip Schaff, D. D., says: "In the celebration of 
Sunday, as it was introduced by Constantine (and still con- 
tinues on the whole continent of Europe), the cultus of the old 
Sun-God Apollo mingles with the remembrance of the resur- 
rection of Christ." 

At the Church Council in 538 the religious observance of 

Sunday was recommended, but very little attention was paid 

to it. 

(112) 



SUNDAY. 113 

In 780 Alcuin, an English prelate, became the spiritual ad- 
viser of Charlemagne, when, for the first time, it was formally 
declared that the fourth commandment covered the first day of 
the week ; but this declaration was observed by comparatively 
few; and for eight centuries thereafter Sunday was observed 
far more as a day of sport and festivity than as a religious 
one. The English parliament sat on Sundays and English 
courts were held on that day, down to the reign of Eliza- 
beth. 

In 1595, Dr. Nicholas Bound, of Suffolk County, England, 
published a work called "The True Doctrine of the Sab- 
bath," in which he maintained, not that Sunday was divinely 
appointed as a Sabbath, but that the obligation to observe a 
Sabbath was divine. This idea seemed to take root and to 
grow rapidly, preparing the way for the rigid observance of 
Sunday as a Sabbath by the Puritans. To quote a Christian 
writer: "At the opening of the seventeenth century, the 
Puritans in England began the unscriptural and deceptive 
practice of calling Sunday the Sabbath." 

W. H. Burr says: "The Christian Sabbath was instituted, 
not in Judea, but in Great Britain ; not in the first, but in the 
seventeenth century ; not by Christ or his apostles, but by the 
Puritans." 

Another writer says : " The story of the establishment and 
reign of the Puritan Sabbath — whose decrepit form is still sup- 
ported by State laws — constitutes one of the most disgraceful 
chapters in the history of ecclesiastical despotism." 

Rev. M. J. Savage says : ' ' The Puritan Sabbath was an out- 
right creation of something which never existed in the world 
before." 

The gloom and absurdity of a Puritanical Sabbath is well 
illustrated by Macaulay : " The Puritans opposed bear-baiting 
on Sunday, not because it gave pain to the bears, but because 
it gave pleasure to the people." 

As showing that the inheritance of Puritanism, by its igno- 
rance and bigotry, does violence to the kindly feelings of our 
nature, even to-day, we quote from a recent issue of the 



114 SUNDAY. 

Toronto World: "You might as well commit murder, as 
vioalate the fourth command ; of the two evils murder is the 
least r 

Why will not Christian people investigate and find out for 
themselves (which they easily can), that the keeping of Sun- 
day asa " holy Sabbath day," is wholly without warrant. 

I challenge any priest or minister of the Christian religion, 
to show me the slightest authority for the religious observance 
of Sunday. And, if such cannot be shown by them, why is it 
that they are constantly preaching about Sunday as a holy 
day f Are they not open to the suspicion of imposi?ig upon 
the confidence and credulity of their hearers? Surely they 
are deliberately and knowingly practicing deception upon 
those who look to them for candor and for truth, unless they 
can give satisfactory reasons for teaching that Sunday is a 
sacred day. There never was, and is not now, any such 
"satisfactory reasons." No student of the Bible has ever 
brought to light a single verse, line or word, which can, by 
any possibility, be construed into a warrant for the religious 
observance of Sunday. Quotations from the writings of the 
"Church Fathers," and others familiar with Church history, 
support this statement, and include the names of Tertulian, 
Eusebius, Ireneus, Victorinus, Theodoretus, Origen, Chrysos- 
tom, Jerome, Luther, Melancthon, Zwingle, Knox, Tyndale, 
Grotius, Neander, Mosheim, Heylyn, Frith, Milton, Priestley, 
Domville. John Calvin had so little respect for the day that 
he could be found playing bowls most any Sunday. 

The claim that Sunday takes the place of Saturday, and that 
because the Jews were supposed to be commanded to keep the 
seventh day of the week holy, therefore that the first day of the 
week should be so kept by Christians, is so utterly absurd as 
to be hardly worth considering. 

" The only authority for observing Sunday as a Sabbath, is 
the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church." — {Brooklyn 
Examiner - , R. C.) 

"All the great exegetes deny that the fourth commandment 
covers the Lord's Day." — (Rev. E. H. Johnson.) 



SUNDAY. 115 

' ■ The Sunday law has neither scriptural authority nor 
standing room in the law of God." — (Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. d.) 

" Sunday, as a holy day, was unknown to the early Chris- 
tians." — (Judge Reed, Supreme Court, Pennsylvania.) 

11 To call any day of the week a Christian Sabbath is not 
Christian, but Jewish. Give us one scripture for it, and I will 
give you two against it." — (William Penn.) 

' ' The new doctrine (that the prescriptions of the fourth 
commandment have been transferred to the first day of the 
week) was for a long time strenuously opposed by the leading 
divines of the English Church, but warmly contended for by 
the Puritans." — (Bannerman.) 

In 1848 an anti-Sabbath convention was held in Boston to 
protest against the popular delusion of a Puritan Sabbath, and 
which convention was earnestly supported by William Lloyd 
Garrison, Theodore Parker, Charles K. Whipple, Charles E. 
Pratt and William C. Gannett. 

" The commandment distinctly specifies the seventh day of 
the week (Saturday), and not the first (Sunday), as the Sab- 
bath ; and it is wholly by tradition, by extra scriptural 
authority, that Sunday has been so designated instead of 
Saturday. " — ( Catholic Review. ) 

" Sunday is no Christian institution." — (B. F. Underwood.) 

11 Christians carried on their work on Sunday, the same as 
on any other day, down to the time of Constantine." — (Presi- 
dent Andrews, of Brown University.) 

" In the first place, the fourth commandment refers to the 
seventh day ; in the second place, it was never binding upon 
anybody but the Jews ; in the third place, the Decalogue was 
abolished by Christ."— (Rev. B. B. Taylor.) 

"The Sabbath of the commandment is the seventh day of 
the week, not the first '." — (Prof. Smith, ofAndover.) 

" Thousands of sincere Christians know that calling Sunday 
the ' Holy Sabbath ' has no warrant whatever from Christ or 
his Apostles." — {Christian Standard, of Cincinnati.) 

11 Their (the Puritans) warrant for what they did (with 
reference to the observance of Sunday as a Sabbath), whether 



Il6 SUNDAY. 

we look for it in the pages of the New Testament, or in the 
traditions of Catholic Christendom, was neither substantial 
nor sufficient. . . . He has not suddenly become a God- 
less and profane person, because he differs from others about 
Sunday, or because he holds that there are inherited views as 
to the observance of that day, which cannot by any process of 
ingenuity be read into the pages of the New Testament, nor 
into any canon by which Christendom is bound." — (Bishop 
Potter.) 

It has been claimed by some Christians that Sunday should 
be kept holy because Christ was said to have arisen on that 
day. This cannot be true, for if Christ died on Friday, and 
if he rose on Sunday, it was not in accordance with the 
usually accepted Christian belief that he "rose on the third 
day," for there would be but two days from Friday to Sun- 
day. Besides, if "the Gospel according to Matthew" is to 
be believed, he must have risen on (not later than) Saturday, 
for in Matthew xxviii. it distinctly states that it was "at the 
end of the Sabbath " (Saturday) that the sepulchre was found 
to be vacant. 

It is also claimed that the Apostles met on Sundays for 
religious exercises. So they did on other days of the week. 
" Religious worship was more fully attended to on Wednesday 
and Friday than on Sunday." — (Rev. Dr. Lewis.) 

"Not long after Justin Martyr's time, we are sure the 
Christians observed the custom of meeting solemnly for divine 
worship on Wednesday and Friday." — (Joseph Bingham.) 

Rev. E. Nesbitt, d. d., of Santa Barbara, says : "In only 
one instance is an Apostle said to have met with any company 
of persons on the first day of the week, viz. : Acts xx : 7." 
And in that it appears to give as a reason, that Paul was to 
depart on the next day. That Paul habitually observed and 
preached on the seventh day of the week, is shown in Acts 
xviii : 4, — "And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sab- 
bath" (Saturday). 

It is certainly not from Paul that these Sabbatarians get 
their persistence and intolerance, for, in his Epistle to the 



SUNDAY. 



117 



Romans, xiv : 9, he says : ' ' One man esteemeth one day 
above another ; another esteemeth every day alike ; let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind." 

Again, in Cor. ii : 16, " Let no man judge you ... of 
the Sabbath day." 

It is claimed that the interests of order and morality are 
promoted by Sabbath laws : the very reverse is the case. All 
places where rational and innocent amusement can be had be- 
ing closed, people are tempted to indulge in such entertain- 
ments as the saloon and kindred places afford. 

The late Rev. Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh said: "We 
counted on one occasion, in Paris, thirty-three theatres and 
other places of amusement, open on Sunday ; but, in one 
hour, we saw in London and Edinburgh, with all their 
churches and schools and piety, more drunkenness than we 
saw m.five long months in ' guilty ' Paris." 

Rev. Norman McLeod (another Scotch clergyman) speaks 
of the strict enforcement of Sabbatarianism as the "multiplica- 
tion of practical inconsistencies, dishonesties and Pharisaical 
sophistries." 

William C. Gannett says : " At the Scotch Synod in 1867, 
the Puritan Sabbath was openly proclaimed a failure ; one 
speaker saying that Continental Sabbaths produced no parallel 
to the disgraceful behavior which marked the day in Scot- 
land." 

The narrow-minded bigotry which would close our Art 
museums and seeks to close our World's Fair on Sunday, 
because a comparatively few of our people have inherited the 
false idea that Sunday is a sacred day ; thus denying to the 
large majority of our people what is far more sacred than 
any day, their rights as citizens, ought not to be longer 
tolerated. 

The clergy are now expressing themselves boldly and frankly 
on this matter, and it is earnestly to be hoped that the day is 
near when the sacred right of doing that, on Sunday or any 
other day, which the individual conscience of each approves, 
will not be denied. 



Il8 SUNDAY. 

Such conspicuous representatives of the Christian Church 
as Bishops Potter, Tuttle and Simpson, Cardinal Gibbons and 
others, have taken steps in the right direction in this matter, 
and it is^to be hoped that the tide of righteous indignation 
against those who would restrain us from such enjoyments as 
tend to elevate the race, will so rise as to overwhelm the 
present representatives of mediaeval times. 

Bishop Potter says : ' ' We shall get a good Sunday in 
America when men learn to recognize its meaning and its 
uses ; not when we have closed all the doors which, if open, 
might help to teach the lesson of using the world as not abus- 
ing it. It would seem as if the door of a library were one of 
those doors, the door of a well-arranged and well-equipped 
museum another, the door of a really worthy picture-gallery 
another. If there be those who would seek the precincts of 
the exhibition at Chicago to look, it may be, more closely at 
the handiwork of man, to study the progress of the race in the 
story of its artistic and individual and mechanical achievement, 
that certainly can be no unworthy use of some hours of our 
American rest day." 

Principal Cunningham, of Edinburgh, says : " It is a sin to 
keep the museums and art galleries closed on Sundays. . . . 
Farmers are foolish not to take advantage of a fine day to take 
in their crops." 

Cardinal Gibbons says : ' ' I entirely agree with Dr. Weld, 
Pastor of the First Independent Christ Church, in deprecating 
the closing of our art galleries, libraries, etc., on Sunday." 

Archdeacon Blunt says : " The movement for Sunday ob- 
servance ought to be opposed as unsound and unwise. . . . 
I have no wish to go back to the old Puritan Sunday, with 
its gloomy austerity, its rigid formalism, its bigoted un- 
charitableness, its oppressive savor of Sabbatarianism." 

Some one has (truly) said : "To forbid work or play on 
Sunday is as much a tyranny as it would be to forbid worship. ' ' 

The " National Religious Liberty Association" have issued 
this ringing protest against the closing of the World's Fair on 
Sunday : " Let us protest against these religio-political move- 



SUNDAY. 119 

ments. Protest in the name of seventh-day observers, not 
because their faith be true or false, but because of their right 
to liberty, the heaven-born heritage of every man. Protest in 
the name of America and an hundred years of unparalleled 
constitutional freedom. Protest in the name of every citizen 
of the United States, be he Infidel or Jew, Protestant or Catho- 
lic, whose right it is to worship or not to worship as he wills. 
Protest in the name of the down-trodden millions of Russia, 
who trust in the example of America to break their galling 
chains. Protest in the name of earth's millions of every age, 
who have sacrificed their lives on the altar of conscience and 
free thought. And lastly protest in the name of Christianity, 
pure and unspotted, from a State's pollution." 

The sentiment among those in control of the World's Fair 
at Chicago, is very largely in favor of Sunday opening ; and 
as indicating the wishes of the Board of Managers of the 
Chicago Fair for the State of New York, it may be mentioned 
that twelve out of the thirteen members of said Board have 
protested against the action of Congress in voting to shut the 
Fair on Sunday. 

Ex-Congressman Butterworth, of Ohio, estimates the pro- 
portion of those desiring to close the World's Fair on Sunday 
at not over five per cent, of our population (which is un- 
doubtedly a fair estimate), and yet these blatant, busy-body 
religionists, seem to so control the wealthy and influential 
classes as to override the true sentiment of the country. If 
these religious fanatics do not want to go to the Exposition on 
Sunday, let them stay away, and find entertainment in their 
churches and prayer-meetings, but why should it be in their 
power to prevent those who do want to go from going? 
What a gross injustice to the working people, who have but 
this one day on which to view the great exhibition, to have it 
closed against them. 

There is an organization in this country which is a disgrace 
to the civilization and the intelligence of the age in which 
we live ; it is the most ignorant, meddlesome, inquisitorial, 
unjust, persecuting, arbitrary, heartless, pharisaical and un- 



120 SUNDAY. 

patriotic association that exists to-day. It is called the "Ameri- 
can Sabbath Union." The spirit that it manifests is that of 
the most unreasoning intolerance ; which imprisons for opin- 
ion's sake, as it did in England in 1618, when Mrs. Trask 
languished for sixteen years in prison for having her own 
opinion on the subject of Sunday ; and as it did recently in 
Tennessee, when three estimable (Christian) persons were in- 
cacerated for weeks in jail, for the crime (!) of attending to 
their garden or farm duties on Sunday. It evinces precisely 
the same spirit that used the thumb-screw and the rack and 
the stake, to compel conformity to the dictates of fanaticism a 
few centuries ago. 

The American Sabbath Union is ^-American, in that it is 
utterly opposed to that great American principle which would 
entirely and forever separate the Church from the State. 

Mr. B. O. Flower, in the Arena for December, 1892, says: 
"This intolerant spirit has, in recent years, crystallized itself 
into an organization known as the ' ' American Sabbath Un- 
ion." . . . It seeks to establish, in this Republic, the odi- 
ous laws of the sun-worshiping, Christian- Pagan Constantine, 
and to persecute, with the ferocity of a Nero, all who do not 
believe as these narrow-minded children of Paganism." 

We may well fear for the perpetuity of the freedom of which 
we have boasted, when such an association of bigots undertake 
to control legislation for the purpose of imposing their 
particular views upon the law of the country, in utter disregard 
of the rights of a great majority of our people. 

Even those of the same religious persuasion, as are the mem- 
bers of the A. S. U. — and among them the clergy — have 
boldly protested against this usurpation of the rights of Ameri- 
can citizens. The late Rev. Howard Crosby, D. D., has said : 
' ' The Christian Sabbath is a day observed by the individual ac- 
cording to his conscience, and with regard to which the law 
has nothing to do. We cannot urge the maintenance of the 
Christian Sabbath by law. This would be enforcing religion 
by law, and would be a dangerous infringement of our liber- 



SUNDAY. 121 

There can be no greater danger to the priceless heritage of 
liberty, to the grand American idea of freedom from all 
hierarchical control, be it Roman Catholic or Protestant, than 
the success of the objects of such an organization as this Ameri- 
can Sabbath Union. 

Let every one who loves his country ; every one who be- 
lieves liberty more precious than the unproved dogmas and 
absurd superstitions taught by irresponsible zealots ; every 
one who loves justice and who hates tyranny ; every one who 
believes in the "golden rule ;" every one who is swayed by 
kindness rather than prejudice ; every one who has read of 
the horrors which history records of the consequences of the 
Church fastening itself upon the State ; do all that he can to op- 
pose this greatest enemy to our progress as a nation, and to 
our liberties as a people — the American Sabbath Union. 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 

" The Christian religion has been tried for eighteen hundred years. 
The religion of Christ has yet to be tried." — (Lessing.) 

THE Christianity of Christ was a very simple religion. It 
was a religion of love ; of charitable thoughts ; of kind 
acts ; of good deeds. It was founded on the " golden rule ; " 
indeed, that was the sum of it. But from this simple religion 
has evolved, gradually, the repulsive religion of what is known 
as orthodox Christianity. From decade to decade, from gen- 
eration to generation, from century to century, this evolving 
process has gone on ; each of these periods of time furnishing 
its quota of new dogmas, ceremonies and rites, until the Chris- 
tianity of to-day has become as unlike the Christianity of 
Christ as are the gaudy decorations of the Pope of Rome un- 
like the plain garb of a Quaker. 

Dr. Lewis G. Janes, in his book called A Story of Primitive 
Christianity, says : " The salvation of men in the teaching of 
Jesus, depended upon the acceptance of no dogmatic standard 
of truth, but solely upon righteous living. . . . The pop- 
ular Christian doctrine of a vicarious atonement and substituted 
righteousness has no place in the teachings of the Nazarene 
prophet. . . . The conception of himself (Jesus,) or of 
another, as a Son of God, in any exclusive or supernatural 
sense ; of a God coming upon earth in human form ; would 
have been as abhorrent and unnatural to Jesus as it had ever 
been to his people (the Jews.) The trinitarian dogma is a 
belief as impossible to the true Israelite (as was Jesus) as any 
other form of polytheism or idolatry." 

As showing the advance in priest-made dogmas, even from 
one century to the next, Dr. Draper says : " Great is the dif- 
ference between Christianity under Severus (born 146) and 

(122) 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. I 23 

Christianity under Constantine (born 274.) Many of the doc- 
trines which at the latter period were pre-eminent, in the 
former were unknown. ... As years passed on, the faith 
described by Tertulian (second century) was transferred into 
one more fashionable and debased." 

T. W. Doane, in Bible Myths, says: "The sublime and 
simple theology of the primitive Christian — was gradually cor- 
rupted and degraded by the introduction of a popular mythol- 

ogy." 

Rev. Edward Everett Hale, in North American Review, 
January, 1889, says : " I am very glad to have the attention of 
religious people brought back to the early literature which sets 
in new light the simple religion which was proclaimed by 
Jesus Christ ; while it destroys the man-made theology of the 
last fifteen centuries." 

The Christian religion (not the religion of Christ) has been 
formulated by the several councils of the Christian Church. 
As a sample of these councils, we may take that of Nice 321 — 
more than half of the delegates to which council were arbitrarily 
dismissed from it, because their opinions were opposed to 
those of the Emperor Constantine. In it, like in most of the 
Church councils in after years, was exhibited a bitterness of 
feeling among the (remaining) delegates that made its pro- 
ceedings most disgraceful. No political convention of modern 
times will compare, in uproar and tumult, deception and 
trickery, with these Church assemblies. Says Rev. Philip 
SharT, D. D. : " There were also gathered at the councils (of 
the Christian Church) ignorance, intrigue, party passion ; 
arrayed as hostile armies for open combat." The Christian 
religion being formulated under such circumstances, no won- 
der that it became, as it flowed down the centuries, as differ- 
ent from the religion of Christ, as is a mighty river, gathering 
impurities in its course, different from the pure and limpid 
waters of its original stream." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says : " In the early centuries creed 
followed creed till we got tired of trying to keep track of them. 
The same thing took place in the Reformation period. Every 



124 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 

nation spawned creeds. Let them open the Westminster 
Confession, the Thirty-nine articles, etc., and mark with a red 
pencil every faith on which Jesus Christ had spoken a word, 
and they would find that task an object lesson in the modern 
theology on fallen man — not a word on the atonement ; future 
punishment, not a word ; on hell scarcely a word, and so 
through the Reformation theology. . . . Will Christianity 
ever get back to Jesus Christ ? " 

" Christ's teaching was one thrilling protest against ecclesi- 
asticism. His life was one pathetic plea for religious freedom. 
He cut down doctrinism and dogmatism as a mower cuts down 
thistles. In his insistance on practical holiness, there was no 
room for chatter about creeds. This fervent young rabbi had 
no time to formulate a 'shorter catechism.'" — (Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps, Forum, May, 1889.) 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " That legend which went 
on growing, century after century, until the theological con- 
ception of Jesus Christ was as unlike the actual man who 
trod the earth of Galilee, as 4< Pollock's course of time, is un- 
like the simple songs that came straight from the heart of 
Robert Burns. If you know of any two things more unlike, 
then you can make a contrast of your own and it will be better 
than mine ; for the more unlike the things that you contrast, 
the better will they image forth the difference between the 
actual Jesus and the theological being who in about three cen- 
turies was substituted for Jesus. . . . Any Jewish church 
of our own time is nearer to the primitive Christian orthodoxy 
(of Jerusalem) than any form of modern Christianity that 
vaunts its orthodoxy. . . . Had there been no Paul, 
Christianity would have been only a Jewish sect. . . . The 
conversion of the Roman Empire by Christianity was about 
equally the conversion of Christianity by the Roman Empire. 
The Empire became Christian ; Christianity became Pagan." 

Alfred H. O'Donohue, late of Trinity College, Dublin, in 
his book, Theology and Mythology, says: "The doctrines 
that Jesus taught — the brotherhood of man and the condem- 
nation of priestcraft — entitle him forever to the admiration and 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. I 25 

gratitude of his race. . . . Christianity, as taught and 
understood by Jesus and his followers, has ceased to exist for 
sixteen hundred years. In modern Christianity hardly a trace 
of the religion of Jesus is discernible. . . . If Jesus and 
his true life were taken from Christianity, it is doubtful if it 
would excite notice. 

The doctrines of the incarnation, of the resurrection, of the 
atonement, of the immaculate conception, of the divinity of 
Christ, of the " procession " of the Holy Ghost, of the Trinity, 
of inspiration of gospels or epistles, of the infallibility of a man 
or of a church, were all unknown to the founder of Christianity. 
Christ did not make the Christianity of to-day and is no more 
responsible for it than he is for the religion of Buddha or 
Mohammed ; indeed there is as much semblance between 
either of these two religions and that of Christ's religion, as 
there is between the latter and the Christianity of to-day, 
which was manufactured by the " fathers " and by the clergy 
generally in the several centuries succeeding the time of Christ. 
The Bible is not the work of Moses, of David, of Saul, the four 
evangelists, but of those ecclesiastics who made those writings 
to correspond with the declarations of the Church ; making 
such alterations, omissions and interpolations as suited their 
purposes. "The Bible is the creation of the Church ; not the 
Church the creation of the Bible. . . . The Bible did not 
form the beliefs ; the beliefs formed the Bible." 

The doctrines of the immaculate conception and resurrec- 
tion of Christ were in process of development only towards 
the close of the second century ; in the middle or latter part 
of which century most of the books of the New Testament ap- 
peared. The name " New Testament " was not given till the 
third century, and during this century these writings were 
declared to be inspired ; prior to which time those who claimed 
the New Testament to be inspired were denounced as her- 
etics. 

The observance of Sunday as a rest-day was first proclaimed 
in 321, and as the " Sabbath," in the seventeenth century. 

The doctrine of the Trinity first appeared in the fourth cen- 



126 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 

tury. That of " inherited guilt " was promulgated in the fifth 
century. 

The name "Bible" was first applied to the books of the 
Old and New Testament, collectively, in the fifth century. 
The season of ' ' Lent ' ' was first recognized in the fifth cen- 
tury. 

The " Christian Era " was invented in the sixth century. It 
was not authoritatively determined upon what day the resur- 
rection of Christ should be celebrated till the seventh century. 

Transubstantiation became a dogma in the ninth century. 

The celibacy of the clergy became a requisite in the eleventh 
century. 

The dogma of the atonement also first appeared in the 
eleventh century. 

The doctrine of eternal punishment for disbelievers in the 
Bible originated at the Council of Trent, 1545. 

The infallibility of the Bible became a dogma of the Protes- 
tant Church in the sixteenth century. 

The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (that she 
was born of Anne without original sin) became a dogma of 
the Romish Church in the nineteenth century. 

Mosheim, in his Commentaries (p. 228) describes the Gnos- 
tics of the first century as those who pretend that they are 
able to communicate to mankind a correct knowledge of the 
Deity, the origin of the world, the nature of matter and the 
human soul. They were regarded as corrupters of the Chris- 
tianity of Christ. The orthodox Christians of to-day hold the 
same pretentious and dogmatic relation to the pure religion 
of Christ that the Gnostics did in the first century and may be 
regarded, equally, as corrupters of true Christianity. The 
Agnostics of to-day far better represent the religion of Christ 
than do those assuming the name of Christian. 

"The Christianity of Christendom is fundamentally opposed 
to the Christianity of Christ. In attacking ecclesiasticism, I 
am really defending the prophet of Nazareth." — (Alfred 
Momerie.) 

' ' As the Church advanced in worldly power and position a 



PRIMITIVK CHRISTIANITY. 1 27 

temper of deliberate and audacious fraud set itself in action for 
the spread of certain doctrines." — (Dr. Mozley.) 

4 ' No one can have attentively studied the subject without 
being struck by the absence of any such dogmas from the 
earlier records of the teachings of Jesus." — (Supernatural 
Religion.) 

14 The pure Deism of the first century was changed by the 
Church of Rome into the incomprehensible dogma of the 
Trinity." — (Gibbon's Christianity ) 

The religion of Thomas Paine was very much nearer the 
religion of Jesus Christ than that of any of the orthodox clergy 
the world over. These self-righteous persons are either la- 
mentably ignorant of Paine' s religion or lamentably decep- 
tive and dishonest in denying that he had any religion. 
Would one who had no religion say (as did Thomas 
Paine,) "Do we want to contemplate the power, wisdom, 
munificence and mercy of God ? We see them in the immen- 
sity of creation, in the unchangeable order by which the incom- 
prehensible whole is governed, in the abundance with which 
He fills the earth and in His not withholding this abundance 
even from the unthankful ? ' ' 

Paine' s religion was the same as that of the late Rev. Henry 
W. Bellows, D. D., and were Paine living to-day he would be 
one of the strictest of the orthodox Christian Church, in its 
Unitarian branch. His creed and his religion, as expressed 
by himself, was, "I believe in one God only and hope for 
happiness in the world to come . . . The world is my 
country; to do good is my religion." That is all there was 
of the religion of Christ. 

In Moncure D. Conway's most interesting life of Thomas 
Paine, the author says of that truly logical book — the Age of 
Reason — that Paine regarded it as a defense of true religion, 
from its degradation by superstition or destruction by atheism, 
these, as he declares, being the purposes of his work. ' ' Again 
Mr. Con ways says, " So far as it is theological, the Age of 
Reason was meant to combat Infidelity." 

In writing to Samuel Adams, from France, Paine says : 



128 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 

" The people of France were running headlong into atheism, 
and I had the work (Age of Reason) translated into their own 
language to stop them in that career and fix them to the first 
article of every man's creed, who has any creed at all — I be- 
lieve in God." 

From the works of such eminent Christian writers as Rev. 
Samuel Davidson, D. D., Rev. Brooke Foss Westcott, D. D., 
Drs. Oort, Kuenen and Hooykas, and other investigators into 
the Christianity of Christ and the subsequent engrafting thereon 
of what the Church has made the Christianity of the centuries 
succeeding that of Christ, can be found such information as 
would amaze those who think that the Christianity of to-day 
is the same as that taught by its founder. Orthodox Chris- 
tianity was utterly unknown to him. From the works of the 
writers alluded to can be shown facts which are rarely, if ever, 
presented by any of the orthodox clergy. It can be shown that 
no one knows who are the writers of the books of the Bible, 
or when such books were written, or what they were in the 
original. 

There are no autograph writings of the books of either the 
Old or New Testament. Consequently there can be no evi- 
dence of any correct translation. 

The priesthood have made these books to readjust what it 
was their interest they should read. As to Christ himself, the 
records supposed to be furnished by persons of the names of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are the only records of 
Christ's life. These records differ materially. Among other 
differences is one of eleven years as to the time of Christ's 
birth. They were not written till a century and a half after 
Christ's death. 

"The confused and irreconcilable accounts in the gospels of 
the life and death of Christ were manifestly written to supply a 
want of the Church in the second century." — (Waite.) 

It is now ascertained that probably no persons of the names 
of those to whom are attributed the records of Christ's life, 
wrote those records ; consequently they are anonymous 
writings, and therefore the whole of the life and ministry of 



PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 129 

Christ has no authoritative name to satisfy us of its truthful- 
ness. If such a person as Christ ever lived, he was doubtless 
a gentle-hearted, loving being, who was actuated by a desire 
to do all he could toward lightening the burdens, alleviating 
the sufferings and cheering the hearts of his fellowmen ; having 
his sympathies with the poor, the weak and the lowly ; always 
the enemy of injustice and tyranny. As illustrating how dif- 
ferent this gentle character is sometimes presented to us, we 
quote from Luke xix : 27, which makes the kind and loving 
Jesus to say : " Those mine enemies, which would not that I 
should reign over them, bring hither and slay before me," — 
words so utterly inconsistent with his nature could scarcely be 
imagined. No one who believes in the "meek and lowly" 
Jesus could possibly believe but that that quotation was the 
work of some ecclesiastical forger. 

Col. R. G. Ingersoll has said : " For the man Jesus, who 
loved his fellowmen, I have the most profound respect ; but 
for Christianity, as taught in orthodox creeds, I have the most 
supreme contempt." 

11 Nothing can be more incredible than the account given of 
the birth of Jesus in the canonical gospels of Matthew and Luke. 
Nothing can be more revolting." — (Rev. J. W. Chadwick.) 

The further we have come down the centuries from the time 
of Christ, the further we appear to have departed from the 
religion of Christ. It is perhaps more true to-day than during 
any of the eighteen centuries that are past that the Christian 
religion, as represented by the orthodox Church, is Christian 
only in name. 

In the Arena for July, 1890, is an article by Rev. Carlos 
Martyn, D. D., entitled " Chzirc/riamty (01 so-called Chris- 
tianity) vs. Christianity," which illustrates this thought. Dr. 
Martyn says : It (Church\3.n\ty) is like counterfeit coin — cur- 
rent, but false. ... It puts the emphasis on belief, when 
it should put it on conduct. It builds cathedrals not men. 
Religion is transformed from a pri7iciplc into an institution. 
We look for Christ and find a church. . . . Phariseeism 
is resurrected and baptized with a Christian name. ' ' 



130 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 

There appears, however, at the present time, a revolt in all 
our churches against the dogmas which have so long stood 
between the Church and the religion of Christ. Christians 
themselves are beginning to think these dogmas incompatible 
with the enlightened age in which we live, and that they should 
be " relegated to the limbo into which are flung the cast-off 
garments of vagabond theories." 

Many are earnestly and anxiously asking the question of 
Rev. Dr. Heber Newton — "Will Christianity ever get back 
to Jesus Christ?" 

Efforts in that direction are making most successful progress. 

The Christian Register of Boston says : "We are at the 
beginning of a movement in religion more extensive than any 
recorded in history. Compared with it tne Protestant refor- 
mation is a small episode. The movement is wider than any 
one religion and deeper than any one can measure. Five 
hundred years from now it will be seen that just before the 
twentieth century, the creeds of all nations and churches began 
to break up, and that throughout the world there was a rush 
of religious feeling which carried, these fragments of creeds 
away. ' ' 

The ' ' signs of the times ' ' were never more favorable than 
now for a change from the effete theology of ecclesiastical 
councils and the dogmatic creeds of nominal Christianity, to 
the Christianity of primitive times — the Christianity of Christ. 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

THE word incongruity embraces in its meaning incon- 
sistencies, contradictions, inaccuracies and absurdities, 
and as all these so abound in the books of the Bible, and as 
Christianity has adopted the Bible as the foundation of its 
faith, it, of course, adopts all that is incongruous in the Bible, 
so that the title of this article would seem to be both com- 
prehensive and appropriate. 

To speak of all the incongruities in the Bible or of the Chris- 
tian religion would be a task impossible of accomplishment by 
anyone. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of 
them. 

Prof. Ladd, of Yale University, says : ' ' There are probably 
a hundred thousand errors in the text of the Bible." 

The Truth- Seeker says : " In the collection of the manuscript 
for Grierback's edition, as many as 150,000 different readings 
of the scriptures are discovered." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " The history of the New 
Testament revision made generally known the fact that there 
were 150,000 disagreements in the various M. S. of the New 
Testament alone, upon which the reviewers were dependent 
for their knowledge of the original Greek. . . . While 
the first forty chapters are, for the most part, actually, Isaiah, 
the last twenty-seven are from another prophet, who lived two 
centuries later. Yet there is not a hint of this in the revision. 
. . . The Book of Daniel was written two hundred years 
after Daniel 's death. . . . Hundreds of years elapsed 
from the time that the books of the Bible were collected and 
assumed their present form. Meantime they floated about, 
written upon tablets, or leaves of bark, and on parchment ; 

(131) 



132 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

they were copied and copied again ; they went through all 
sorts of changes ; all sorts of mistakes were made. . . . 
It was not thought a sin to change a manuscript a little here 
and there. . . . Contradiction disfigures page after page 
of the New Testament (as well as of the Old). In the first 
three gospels we have one picture of Jesus, and in the fourth 
gospel another. If Jesus was the Jesus of Matthew and Mark 
and Luke, it is impossible that he could have been the Jesus of 
John. . . . The Bible is partly true and partly false. . . . 
The Bible is not (as is claimed) a literary and moral unit. It 
contains sixty-seven different books, having in many instances 
no other connection than that afforded by the binders' stich- 
ing of leaves, and were written at different times throughout 
a period of fifteen hundred years, during which period the 
thoughts of men underwent great changes. . . . The 
Bible is composed of the most diverse elements, abounding 
in misapprehensions, contradictions and mistakes, and pos- 
sesses no authority whatever. Every clergyman in the Prot- 
estant Church knows that these books have no validity. 
. . . . Science teaches us how from primal germs the 
world has been evolved into its present shape. A single page 
of Faraday or Lyell signifies more than whole volumes of 
cosmogony like that of Genesis ! Think of all the precious 
time wasted to endeavor to make the Bible echo the great 
truths of Science ! . . The great German critics, who 

gave up wealth and ease in their absorbing passion for truth, 
long ago convinced all scholars of the inaccuracies of Bible 
history ; but it was left to Bishop Colenso — as true a heart as 
England ever owned — to publish these inaccuracies so plainly 
that a wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein. 
These inaccuracies are largely characteristic of the New as 
well as of the Old Testament." 

The Truth- Seeker says : " The criticism of the Pentateuch 
began as early as the eleventh century, chiefly among the 
Jews. The Christians were too ignorant to grapple the subject. 
Heathen authors, like Celsus and Julian, represented the 
Pentateuch as mythical, and paralleled its stories with pagan 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 133 

mythology. ... All the world knows about Jesus Christ 
is found in the four gospels. These gospels are anonymous, 
unreliable and contradictory \ There is no evidence that one 
of them was written for at least one hundred and fifty years 
after the events they pretent to record had transpired. . . . 
No Greek, nor Roman, nor Jewish writer ever mentioned 
Jesus. Jesus himself did not claim to be more than man. He 
was regarded simply as a human teacher. . . . The at- 
tributing to Jesus of deity is the work of theologians. . . . 
All four gospel writers tell each a different story, and Paul, the 
one who wrote earlier than either, disagrees with them all. 
. . . The contradictions of the gospel writers, and the con- 
duct of the apostles are inexplicable upon any theory which 
asserts that the writers knew any facts concerning events they 
pretended to record. . . . We find in the gospels con- 
tradictions so plain that one or the other must be false." 

Of course only a very few of the errors and disagreements 
in the Bible can be noticed here, but enough can be shown to 
illustrate the utter unreliability and absurdity, and the alle- 
gorical character of the book which has become an object of 
superstitious veneration, at least among the Protestant portion 
of Christian worshippers. What is this book and from whom 
does it emanate? No one knows who are the authors of these 
writings, and as there are no autographs of them extant, it is 
impossible to determine how they would compare with the 
originals. Of course they are the productions of persons just 
as human and just as fallible as any living to-day, and have 
been altered, added to and interpolated in the interest of a 
church. It is claimed that they were inspired by God. Is it 
possible that believers in the Bible are willing to admit that 
their God has furnished them with a book in which its false 
science, its inaccurate history, its incredible stories, its silly 
fables, its encouragement of polygamy, slavery, intemperance 
and deception, its cruelties and its obscenities are made so 
manifest? And yet such believers cannot fail of such admis- 
sion if they would only read the Bible unprejudiced and with- 
out superstitious fear. Among others, many of the " fathers " 



134 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

of the church have questioned the literal meaning, the truth- 
fulness of the books of the Bible. 

Judge R. B. Westbrook says: ''Pluto, Josephus, Papias, 
Tertulian, Clement, Ambrose, Athanasius and Augustine 
regarded the so-called Mosaic account of the creation and fall, 
an allegory." 

Maimonides, a learned Jewish rabbi, says (speaking of the 
Bible) : ' ' Taken according to the letter, this work gives the 
most absurd and extravagant idea of divinity. ' ' 

Rabbi Kohler, of the Temple Beth-El says : " People have 
made a fetich of the Bible, drawing from it their geology, their 
astronomy, their history, and all their science. By it they 
justified the burning of witches and heretics, slavery and 
polygamy. Chafing under the despotic sway of the book, 
men at last exposed its errors. Condemn not those iconoclasts 
like Voltaire and Thomas Paine ; their ridicule emancipated 
the race from the thraldom of the book." 

Even the great apostle Paul himself speaks of what is written 
of the " Sons of Abraham " as " an allegory. " — (Gall, iv : 24.) 

Prof. John W. Draper says : "It is the decision of many 
learned and pious English and German moderns that the whole 
Pentateuch is unhistoric ; that it contains the most extra- 
ordinary contradictions and impossibilities, sufficient to involve 
the credibility of the whole." 

Rev. Myron Adams, of Boston, in his book, the "Creation 
of the Bible," speaks of Genesis as largely mythical, and its 
older parts products of oral tradition. The creation of the 
Bible began with Ezra, after the Babylonish exile, and adds : 
" The books of Job and Daniel are fictitious," 

"The Bible, although one of the most read, yet is the most 
misread of books, and the least understood." — (Clodd's 
' ' Childhood of Religion. ' ' ) 

"Modern Biblical criticism has shattered the traditional 
theories of the authorship of the Biblical book." — (Rev. C. 
A. Briggs, D. D.) 

" The Bible is untrustworthy," — Rev. E. G. Smyth, D. D.) 

" The Bible has sanctioned the violation of every part of 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 135 

the universally recognized moral code. It has outraged 
decency by its obscene recitals." — (John E. Remsburgh.) 

1 ' The generally recorded opinion is that the manuscript of 
the books of Moses, Judges, Mordecai, Kings, Chronicles, 
Job, Samuel and others were destroyed by fire when Ne- 
buchadnezzar took Jerusalem." — (Chamber's Encyclopaedia.) 

Rev. Minot J. Savage says: ''The Books of the Bible are 
full of contradictions aud errors, while the moral tone of 
many parts of them is such as to make it impiety in us to 
credit them to a just and loving God. ... It is in- 
congruous, even to absurdity, to think of God as a localized, 
outlined Being, setting forth his arbitrary decrees like a 
celestial Kaiser. . . . It is well known to all competent 
scholars, that Moses had no hand in composing the five books 
traditionally ascribed to him. It is also well known that 
the Jews did not attempt to tell any story of Adam or the fall 
until after they had borrowed it in the days of their captivity. 
These things are only pagan traditions, and there is no more 
reasonable basis for them than there is for one of the tales of 
the Arabian Nights, and yet they have stood in the way of the 
world's knowledge ; have been made the means of darkening 
human minds ; oppressing human hearts and kindling fires for 
the burning of brave and noble men for ages. . . . The 
first man is now found close on the borders of the animal 
world, and in the light of this discovery the utterly baseless 
tradition of the fall becomes absurd. No fall, but the ascent 
of man is what now appears. This one fact is the death- 
blow to the old theology. In the light of to-day the plan 
of salvation has no rational excuse for continued existence one 
day more." 

The late Rev. N. A. Staples says: "Take the brush of 
criticism and paint the errors (of the Bible) into a dark back- 
ground ; if not done by those who love the Bible, it will be 
roughly done by those who do not love it. The inconsistencies 
of the old claim for the Bible are seen and perfectly well 
understood outside the church, and if the pulpit is not mag- 
nanimous enough to confess its old errors, the Bible will be 



I36 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

thrown aside altogether. People must be taught that the 
Bible cannot stand in the way of science or philosophy, nor 
supersede individual judgment." 

According to orthodox Christianity, "We are required to 
believe that Jehovah, the ruler of all worlds, the pure, spiritual, 
supreme, ineffable creator of the universe, our father who is in 
heaven, selected one favored people (who never numbered 
one per cent, of the earth's population) from the rest of his 
children ; sanctified fraud ; commanded cruelty ; contended 
(and for awhile in vain) with the magi of other gods ; wrestled 
bodily with one patriarch ; eat cakes and veal with another ; 
sympathized with and shared in human passions ; manifested 
scarcely one untainted moral excellence ; we are required to 
do this painful violence to our feelings and our understand- 
ings, simple because these coarse conceptions prevailed some 
thousand years ago among a people whose history, as written 
by themselves, is certainly not of a nature to inspire us with 
any extraordinary confidence in their virtue or their intellect." 
— (Greg' s ' ' Creed of Christendom. ' ' ) 

"The God of the Bible is amoral montrosity." — (Henry 
Ward Beecher.) 

"Vishnu, with a necklace of skulls, is figure of love and 
mercy, compared to the God of the Old Testament." — (Rev. 
Theodore Parker.) 

' ' From the aspersions of the pulpit I would rescue the repu- 
tation of the Deity." — (Ingersoll.) 

But let all read the Bible for themselves, and they can- 
not but be convinced that they are worshipping a God pos- 
sessed of human frailties, reverencing a book that contains 
more untruths and indecencies than any other, and encoura- 
ging a religion that is deceptive, superstitious, and opposed to 
the conclusions of intelligent thought. 

In Deut. xxxii : 27, God is said to have "feared the wrath 
of the enemy." 

In Ex. xxxii, Moses rebukes God, saying (12th verse), 
"Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against 
thy people (16th verse) and the Lord repented." 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. I37 

Gen. vi : 6, tells us that "it repented the Lord that he 
had made man, . . . it grieved him at his heart." 

In Num. xiv : 16, is shown how far short of omnipotence 
God came. 

In Judges i: 19, we are told that God "could not drive 
out the inhabitants of the valley." 

God is said to be omnipresent, and yet in Gen. xi : 5, we 
read that he "came down to see the city and the tower which 
the children of men builded." 

In 2 Sam. xii : 8, God makes David a present of Saul's 
wives. 

In 2 Sam. xxi : 8, " the five sons of Michal, the daughter 
of Saul" are spoken of, and yet in chap, vi, 23, we read that 
11 Michal (the daughter of Saul) had no child unto the day of 
her death. ' ' 

In Ex. xxi, slavery is regulated, 6th verse: "and his 
master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall 
serve him forever." 

Lev. xxv : 44 and 46: "of them (the heathen) shall you 
buy bondmen and bondmaids, . . . They shall be your 
bondmen forever." 

In Num. xiv : 34, God tells us of his " breach of promise." 

Jer. iv : 10: "Ah, Lord God ! surely thou hast greatly 
deceived this people." 

Jer. xx : 7 : " Oh Lord, though hast deceived me." 

Ezek. xiv: " If the prophet be deceived, ... I, the 
Lord, have deceived that prophet." 

2 Chron. xiii : tells how God encouraged the spirit to enter 
the prophets of Ahab, and to put lying spirits in their mouths. 

In Jer. xv : 18, God is asked the question, " Wilt thou be 
altogether unto me as a liar." 

2 Thess. ii : 1 1 : " God shall send them strong delusion that 
they should believe a lie." 

1 Kings, xxii : 23 : "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in 
the mouths of all these thy prophets." 

In one place we are told to swear by the Lord's name, 
and in another to "swear not at all." 



I38 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

Christ is called the "prince of peace," and his teachings 
are spoken of as the ' ' gospel of peace ' ' and yet he is made 
to say, ' ' Suppose ye that I am come to bring peace on 
earth ? I tell you nay, but rather division. The father shall 
be divided against the son, . . . the mother against the 
daughter, . . . the mother-in-law against the daughter- 
in-law " (Luke xii : 51-53) ; " He that hath no sword let him 
sell his garment and buy one," (xxii : 36). 

Mark xii : " The brother shall betray .the brother to death, 
the father the son." 

In Rev. xii : 7, it says, " there was war in heaven," there- 
fore a peaceful and happy abode in heaven cannot be counted 
upon. 

What are the Bible teachings as to the use of stimulants ? 
In Ps. civ : 15, we are told how glad the heart of man is made 
by wine. 

In Prov. xxxi : 6-7, the advice furnished is to " give strong 
drink unto him who is ready to perish, and wine unto those 
who be of a heavy heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty, 
and remember his misery no more." 

In Eccl. ix : 7, we are recommended " to drink wine with a 
merry heart." 

11 Drink, yea, drink abundantly." — (Songs of Sol. v : 1.) 

"Wine which cheereth God and man." — (Judges ix : 13.) 

Jer. xxv : 27-28, " Drink ye and be drunken. ... If 
they refuse, . . . then shalt thou say unto them, ' Thus 
said the Lord of hosts, ye shall certainly drink.' " 

John (i : 18) says : " No man has seen God at any time," 
but Jacob says (Gen. xxxii : 30) : " I have seen God face to 
face." 

Matt, (vii : 8) says : " Every one that asketh receiveth, and 
he that seeketh findeth." Per contra, we read in Prov. 
(1-28), " Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer ; 
they shall seek me early, but shall not find me." 

Paul tells that God is not the author of confusion, but of 
peace (1 Cor. xiv :), but in Ex. (xv : 3), he is spoken of as a 
' ' man of war. ' ' 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. I39 

We are told that ' ' God is love, " is ' ' very pitiful and of 
tender mercy," and again we are told " God is a consuming 
fire." 

"The New Testament is filled with contradictions. The 
gospels do not agree even upon the terms of salvation, upon 
the gospel or mission of Christ. They do not tell the same 
story regarding the betrayal, crucifixion, resurrection or 
ascension of Christ. The evangelists do not give the same ac- 
count of the same miracles, and the miracles are not given in 
the same order. They do not agree even in the genealogy of 
Christ. " — (Ingersoll. ) 

According to Matt, (xxvii : 5) Judas "hanged himself." 
But we are told in Acts (i : 18) that he died an entirely differ- 
ent death. 

In the genealogy of Christ, as furnished by Matthew, there 
are twenty-eight generations, while that furnished by Luke 
gives forty-three generations from David to Christ. Both ac- 
counts in these lines of descent are almost totally different, but 
they agree in the fact that Jesus was the son of Joseph. This, 
however, is all contradicted by other portions of the New 
Testament, which calls Jesus the "son of God," and makes 
the absurd, unnatural, impossible claim that he was born of a 
virgin. 

According to John one woman came to the sepulchre ; ac- 
cording to Matthew two women came ; according to Mark 
three women came and according to Luke (not less than) four 
women came. 

According to Luke (xxiv : 50-51) Christ ascended from 
Bethany ; (but if Acts (i : 9-12) is to be taken as authority, 
the ascension was from Mount Olivet. 

In the " sermon on the mount," we are told to do what is 
impracticable not only, but that which would sap the foundations 
of social life. 

To turn the left cheek to one who smites you on the right ; 
to give your coat to one who takes your cloak ; to go two 
miles, because you have been compelled to go one mile ; to 
give equal wages to one who works one hour as to those who 



140 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

have for twelve hours, borne the heat and burden of the day ; 
to treat the prodigal with greater favor than the frugal son ; 
to give to him that asketh, and to turn not away from him 
that would borrow ; to require the selling of all that a man 
hath and the giving of the proceeds to the poor ; to urge 
the taking of no thought for the morrow ; to love your 
enemies and those who would curse and hate and despitefully 
use you ; would be to encourage wrong, injustice, improvi- 
dence, malignity. 

The Bishop of Peterborough said that ' ' society would not 
hold together a week if the sermon on the mount was practiced. ' ' 

Rev. Theo. Parker says : "It is easy to show, if we have 
the exact words of Jesus, that he was mistaken in some points 
of the greatest magnitude ; in the character of God ; the 
existence of the devil ; the eternal damnation of men ; in the 
interpretation of the Old Testament ; in the doctrine of 
demons and in the end of the world within a few years." 

That Christ (and his apostles) believed the end of the world 
to be in their day is witnessed by the repeated sayings of 
Christ. ' ' There be some standing here which shall not taste 
death till they see the Kingdom of God" (Luke ix : 27.) 
"This generation shall not pass away until all these things be 
done" (Mark xiii : 30). Peter also says (iv : 7), " The end 
of all things is at hand." 

Either Christ never spoke of the end of the world occurring 
in the time of those then living or his predition was not (of 
course) verified. Which horn of the dilemma will the Church 
accept ? 

No quotations from those portions of the Bible which indulge 
in vulgar, indecent and immoral utterances have here been 
made, fearing to shock the sensibility, offend the taste, or 
bring the crimson hue to the cheek of my refined, innocent 
and virtuous hearers. 

In Lord Bacon's works, vol. xiv, pp. 143-15 1, are given 
what are called " Christian paradoxes," from which a few 
extracts may be taken : "A Christian is one who believes 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 141 

things he cannot comprehend. . . . He believes three to 
be one and one to be three ; a father not to be older than his 
son. . . . He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son 
and that very son to be her maker. . . . He believes a 
most just God to have punished a most just person. 
He praises God for his justice, yet fears him for his mercy. 
The more he foresakes worldly things the more he enjoys 
them. . . . He is a peacemaker, yet is continually fight- 
ing and an irreconcilable enemy. . . . He knovveth he can 
do nothing of himself, yet labors to work out his own salva- 
tion. . . . He prays with all his heart not to be led into 
temptation, yet rejoices when he is fallen into it. . . . The 
world will sometimes account him a saint, when God ac- 
counted him a hypocrite." 

The first two chapters of Genesis contains two entirely differ- 
ent accounts of creation. 

It is evident that in the land of Nod, from whence Cain ob- 
tained his wife, there were people living contemporaneously 
with Adam. 

The myth of the "fall of man " is gradually giving place to 
the almost universal truth of the rise of man from lower orders 
of beings. The theory — or rather fact — of evolution has done 
more to unsettle orthodox theology (among scholars and think- 
ers, at least) than anything that has occurred in the history of 
the Christian Church since the adoption of the heliocentric 
system of astronomy. Intelligent people no longer consult the 
Bible for information on the subject of astronomy, geology or 
biology ; are seriously questioning its history, its truthfulness 
and its morality. 

The Bible is authority for placing the age of the world at 
six thousand years, and yet there are villages in Switzerland 
which are known to be seven thousand years old. 

Agassiz found human bones in Florida which he estimated 
to be ten thousand years old. 

The discovery of burnt brick under sixty feet of Nile 
alluvium would indicate its age at twenty thousand years. 



T42 CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. 

" A human skeleton found at a depth of sixteen feet, under 
four buried forests, has been allowed an antiquity of fifty 
thousand years." 

John Fiske says that the American continent was inhabited 
by human beings at least four hundred thousand years ago. 

Tools of human workmanship have been discovered which 
Wallace reckons were left five hundred thousand years ago. 

Lesly believes our race to have been upon the earth for very 
many hundreds of thousands of years. 

Prof. McGee (at the Scientific Convention, Rochester, 
April 22, 92,) expressed the opinion that the duration of life 
on the earth was not less than fifteen million years. 

Not only is the Bible inconsistent, contradictory, inaccurate 
and absurd, but the effect of its teachings has been, probably, 
more calamitous than has resulted from any other single cause. 
It has restrained innocent mirth by requiring us to " mourn 
and weep." It has furnished authority for the husband to 
"ride over" the wife. It has encouraged tyrants by urging 
submission to "the powers that be." It has discouraged 
learning. It has been the most inveterate foe of science. It 
has incited bigotry. It has encouraged the fabulous, the mar- 
velous, the miraculous. It has made superstition its chief and 
almost entire support. It has held virtuous conduct as second- 
ary to its dogmatic postulates. It has made imitators of the 
attempted or pretended sacrifice of Isaac, many an innocent 
child having become the victim of some fanatical Christian 
parent. It has shattered the reason of millions of intelligent, 
but credulous, human beings, who have had faith in the (so- 
called) 4 ' inspired word. ' ' 

Prof. Felix Adler says : " It is a paradox that the gentlest, 
most loving, religious teacher whoever lived should have be- 
come the founder of a religion that has, perhaps, shown more 
cruelty and shed more blood than any other." 

Deut. xiii : 6-9, furnishes the warrant by which "from the 
tenth to the end of the sixteenth century, not less than three 
million 'heretics' — scholars and free inquirers — had to expi- 
ate their love of truth in the flames of the stake." 



CHRISTIANITY INCONGRUENT. I43 

At least five million of our fellow-beings were sacrificed on 
the altar of fanaticism during the crusades alone. 

" The extermination of the Moriscos reduced the population 
of Spain by seven millions." — (Prof. Oswald.) 

The English author, Grant, states the result of belief in the 
verse of the Bible, "Thou shalt not permit a witch to live," 
to be the martyrdom of nine millions of human beings. 

" The dogma of exclusive salvation by faith made forcible 
conversion appear an act of mercy, and stimulated those wars 
of aggression that have cost the lives of more than thirty mil- 
lion of our fellow-men." — (Oswald.) 

" Religion raging with inhuman zeal, 
Arms every hand and points the fatal steel — 
Whatever names divine the parties, claim, 
In craft and fury they are both the same." 

In concluding this line of thought, I give what are infinitely 
better (of course) than any words of my own, those of the in- 
comparable Ingersoll : 

"The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people 
is the Bible. That book burnt heretics, built dungeons, 
founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of 
man. That book spread the pall of superstition over the col- 
leges and schools. That book puts out the eyes of science 
and makes honest investigation a crime. That book fills the 
world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear. ... If cathe- 
drals had been universities, if dungeons of the Inquisition had 
been laboratories, if Christians had believed in character in- 
stead of creed, if they had taken from the Bible all the good 
and thrown away the wicked and absurd, if domes of temples 
had been observatories, if priests had been philosophers, if 
missionaries had taught the useful arts, if astrology had been 
astronomy, if the black art had been chemistry, if superstition 
had been science, if religion had been humanity, this world 
would have been a heaven filled with love, with liberty and joy. 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

THERE is no ranker injustice than that a portion of the 
community should be compelled, by law, to pay for the 
support of institutions in which it not only does not believe, 
but which it regards as a positive injury to the well-being of 
the community at large. 

And yet such injustice is in constant practice among us 
by the system now prevailing in nearly every part of our 
country, and known as that of exempting Church property 
from taxation. 

Why is this done ? It is because an influential portion of 
the community assumes that the Churches exert a moral in- 
fluence, and that therefore, the people at large should be com- 
pelled to support the Churches ; this influential portion of the 
community also impudently claiming that there is no morality 
outside of Christianity ! 

There are other institutions, other agencies besides Chris- 
tianity, which exert a moral influence on the community, but 
which are not exempt, and do not claim exemption, from 
taxation. 

But do the Churches exert a moral influence ? Do they en- 
courage that enlightened desire for knowledge, that persistent, 
unbiased search for truth, which is the basis of true morality ? 
Do they discourage that injustice with the practice of which no 
morality can be genuine ? Do they recognize the moral obliga- 
tion demanded by the "golden rule?" Do they render to 
Caesar (or the State) the things that are Caesar's," or, rather, 
do they not utterly repudiate the demands which Christ thus 
makes, by re/using to render to the State that which is its 

due, as tax on their Church property ? 

(144) 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 145 

The superstitions which are encouraged in both the Roman 
Catholic and Protestant Churches are, and have been for 
centuries, the chief obstacles to the advance of civilization, of 
intellectual and scientific and elevating thought. The immoral 
doctrine of the atonement, that the innocent could justly be 
punished for the crimes or sins of the guilty ; that upright 
men and women are to suffer endless torment for no other 
reason than that they act upon the dictates of their consciences, 
which have been enlightened by the free exercise of their in- 
tellectual faculties, while murderers and others who have led 
the most reprobate of lives are to enjoy an eternity of bliss, if 
only at the last moment of their wretched existence they pro- 
fess faith in the dogmas of the Christian Church ; the teachings 
of the Bible, its untrustworthy statements and obscene recitals ; 
all these inculcations of Christianity are of so objectionable a 
character as to impel those opposed to it to do what they can 
to lessen its influence and as far as possible to arrest its 
progress. As T. B. Wakeman, Esq., says : " Those opposed 
to the exemption of Church property have conscientious con- 
victions against furnishing means to teach the doctrines of 
total depravity, hell, fall of man, atonement, forgiveness of 
sins by prayer, absolution by penance, baptism, infallibility of 
Pope, Church, Bible or revelation." 

Statistics prove that, with rare exceptions, our criminal class 
have been brought under the influence of the Church, either 
Roman Catholic or Protestant. Dexter A. Hawkins, an 
eminent lawyer in the City of New York, who made such mat- 
ters very largely the study of the closing years of his active 
and useful life, has shown by figures that attendants on the 
schools of the Christia?i Church became inmates of jails, in the 
proportion of more than three to one of those who were educated 
in our picblic schools. 

And yet, notwithstanding the conscientious convictions of 
persons opposed to the influences of the Churches, notwith- 
standing the proven demoralization of their teachings, not- 
withstanding that two-thirds of the inhabitants of the country 
are not church-goers, and have no interest whatever in the 



I46 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

maintenance of the Church, these persons are forced to con- 
tribute to the support of the Church, compelled to pay for its 
maintenance. 

The system known as exempting Church property from 
taxation is an evasioyi of the well-known principle which under- 
lies the Constitution of the United States and of the several 
States with reference to the question of religion, there being 
express provisions against the donating of the public moneys 
for the support of religion, or indeed of even the recognition 
of any religion. We have the high authority of the late Judge 
Story of the Supreme Court of the United States for saying 
that it is unconstitutional for anyone to "be compelled to 
. . . support any place of worship or to maintain any 
ministry against his consent." 

What is this exemption of Church property from taxation 
but an " evasion ?" 

What difference does it make whether our legislators openly 
donate so much of the public money every year to the support 
of the Churches, or whether such Churches are exempted by 
legislative action from the operation of a general tax law? 
None whatever. 

11 Tax exemption is equivalent to direct appropriation." 
"An exemption is simply the presentation of a receipted bill 
for taxes." 

11 In this country, where we are wont to indulge in the proud 
boast of freedom from any ' ' entangling alliance ' ' whatever with 
the Church, we are contributing to the support of the Church, 
practically, precisely the same as in those countries where a 
union of Church and State is recognized. 

The exemption of Church property from taxation, in utter 
disregard of the rights of a minority, is an abuse of power 
which should be expected only from monarchical governments. 
It is opposed to every principle upon which a republican 
government is founded. 

Let no one say that we have not a Union of Church and 
State in this country so long as the practice of exempting 
Church property from taxation continues. 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 147 

The attendants of these untaxed Churches talk of morality, 
of honesty, of justice ! Can there be anything more unjust, 
more dishonest, and consequently more immoral than the acts 
of Church members who countenance such an evasion of law, 
such a violation of principle, such gross wrong to other mem- 
bers of the community ? 

This is not a question in favor of — or against — any religion, 
but oi principle, the principle that every member of the com- 
munity is entitled to the same rights, precisely, as any other 
member of the community, and that no person shall be required 
to pay for the support of the Christian religion any more than a 
Christian should be required to pay for the support of Moham- 
medanism, of Agnosticism, or of (what is known among Chris- 
tians as) Infidelity. Thomas Jefferson says, "It is wicked 
and tyrannical to compel any man to support a religion in which 
he does not believe." 

The theory of our government is that all interests that are 
protected by the State should contribute equally to the support 
of the State. If the Churches do not contribute to the support 
of the State they are clearly not entitled to the protection of 
the State. Churches are protected by our police and fire 
departments, and when injured or destroyed by mob violence 
the city pays for the damages done ; and yet they contribute 
not a dollar for the protection accorded them. 

Every taxpayer is greatly interested in this question of ex- 
empting Church property from taxation ; for every dollar that 
is exempted becomes so much additional burden upon the 
non-exempt ; the non-exempt being compelled to pay what- 
ever sum may be exempted. An illustration may give force 
to this fact. We suppose a community to exist where there 
are but two owners of real property, and where it is necessary 
to raise by tax, say $5,000 for its support. Each owner con- 
sequently contributes $2,500 in taxes. But if one of these 
owners is exempt from the payment of his tax, of course the 
burden of the whole $5,000 falls upon the other. Here is seen 
the great injustice, the gross outrage, done to the non-exempt 
owner. 



I48 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

Samuel B. Duryea, of Brooklyn, very properly says : "All 
exemption of Church property, on the ground that it is a 
religious corporation, is a trespass upon the freedom, liberty 
and equality of the thought of the people. . . . Any in- 
stitution that is exclusive has no right to claim exemption, and 
if it is unable to exist without State support, it should be swept 
away. ' ' 

Benjamin Franklin says : "A religion that depends on the 
State for support, is, for that reason, a bad religion." 

The New York Evening Post, while conducted by William 
Cullen Bryant, said: "The separation of Church and State 
should include the total discontinuance of contributions of 
public moneys, direct or indirect, to the support of any relig- 
ious institution." 

President Garfield said : " The divorce between Church and 
State should be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, 
in any State or in the Nation, should be exempt from equal 
taxation." 

Professor A. L. Rawson says : " The votaries of the Bible, 
by the exemption of Church property from taxation, divert a 
considerable portion of the public revenue to sectarian pur- 
poses. This they do in a government whose fundamental law 
contains a protest against the methods of government by the 
Church. In that way they enjoy equal protection for their 
Church property and withhold the taxes by which that protec- 
tion is secured." 

The New York Times recently said : " Through the exemp- 
tion of Church property the people have to pay towards the 
support of all Churches, without reference to their own belief 
in the teachings of any of them. . . . There is no reason 
why large plots of land and costly edifices should be free 
from taxes, while the humble home of the poor has, on that 
account, to pay an increased share to the public revenue." 

James Parton says : ' ' Whatever property the State protects 
ought to contribute its proportion to the State's support. If 
Church property is to be exempt from the charge of supporting 
the government, then should the government be exempt from 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. I49 

the charge of protecting it . . . the infinite wrong of tax- 
ing a workingman's home to its full value and letting a ten 
million dollar cathedral go tax free." 

Rev. Franklin Wilson, before the Taxpayers' Association 
of Baltimore, said (in substance): "The Mohammedan, 
Mormon, Spiritualist, Agnostic, may demand exemption as 
well as the Christian. Again, injustice is shown when the rich, 
refined church-goers of the elegant cathedral receive a far 
larger exemption bonus than the hard-working, devoted 
members of the mission chapel." 

Rev. Dr. Shipman, of Christ Church, New York City, says : 
" That which is protected by government, may justly be com- 
pelled to maintain it. ... I would like to see all Church 
property throughout this land taxed to the last dollar's worth." 

The late Bishop Phillips Brooks says: "Every institution 
in which the doctrine of a particular Church is inculcated 
ought, for its own sake and for the State's sake, to be guarded 
most jealously from any connection with State support." 

Protests against the great wrong of exempting Church 
property from taxation have been heard from a large majority 
of the secular press of this country, also from many religious 
publications, notably the Independent and Christian U7iion. 

The Baptist Preachers Association of Baltimore recently 
voted in favor of taxing Church property. 

The Christian Statesman says that "the Jarvis Street 
Baptist Church of Toronto recently adopted a resolution de- 
claring its protest against the exemption of Church property 
from taxation, as being contrary to the principle which ought 
to regulate the relation of the State to all ecclesiastical bodies." 

Encouragement may be gathered from the fact that the sub- 
ject of taxing Church property is being agitated in all parts of 
our country, and as showing that some progress has already 
been made it may be mentioned that in the States of California, 
Washington and New Hampshire, Church property — under 
certain conditions — is now subject to taxation. 

A careful examination of authorities on the subject of the 
value of Church property in the United States which is exempt 



I50 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

from taxation, induces the selection of the figures of Rev. 
James Freeman Clarke, in his " Ten Great Religions" as 
conservative estimates and which seem approximately correct. 
These are, in 1850, $87,000,000; i860, $171,000,000 ; 1870, 
$354,000,000. 

Samuel Roberts, in the Illinois Social Science Club (July 
25, 1891), estimated exempt Church property in 1880 at 
$746,294,833. 

These figures (about doubling each decade) justify Judge 
Westbrook in estimating exempt Church property in 1890 at 
$1,500,000,000. And also justify General Grant's estimate for 
1900 of $3,000,000,000. 

At two per cent, on this sum there are sixty millions of 
dollars of taxes unpaid by those whose property is protected 
by the State and who in all justice should pay them, but 
which taxes are forced by wrongful exemptions, from the 
pockets of those who have no direct interest in the property 
exempted. 

At the above rate of increase in the value of the Church 
property we may expect to see it rise in 1930 to $25,000,000,000, 
and to the impressive figures in 1950 of $100,000,000,000. 

In Thaddeus B. Wakeman's able address before the Legisla- 
ture, on the subject of tax exemption he states that "in Feb- 
ruary, 1885, the New York City commissioners made a report 
to the Legislature of the State, in which it was shown that in 
said city property actually occupied by Churches and 
exempted from all taxation amounted to $42,137,500, mis- 
cellaneous exempted property (not public) $33,394,930; 
nearly all of this (miscellaneous exempted) property is under 
the control and influence of the Churches." So that to the 
amount exempted from taxation for property "actually oc- 
cupied by the Churches should be added, say 75 per cent, for 
other untaxed institutions under the control and influence of 
the Churches." 

Assuming that in other parts of the country there is a 
similar exemption from taxation of property under control 
of the Churches, in addition to the exempted property actually 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 151 

occupied by the Churches, — say 75 per cent, additional — and 
we are forced to add to the figures, which we have stated as 
the amount which in 1950 we may expect to see the value of 
Church property rise to the sum of $75,000,000,000. 

Nor is this all. If we consider the remitting to the Churches 
and to institutions controlled by them, of assessments for im- 
provements, which all others are compelled to pay ; also the 
amount directly appropriated to religious organizations an- 
nuallw and the occasional gifts to churches, etc. ; we are far 
under the mark (we think) when we add therefor 25 per cent. 
on the estimated amount of Church property exempted from 
taxation. 

These estimates are confirmed by Mr. Wakeman, who says : 
" The property actually in use by Churches in this State and 
exempted will amount to $150,000,000, while the institu- 
tions, etc., and their practical influence and control will doubt- 
less more than double that amount." 

Calling the population of New York State, about one-tenth 
of that of the United States, the figures of Mr. Wakeman — 
$150,000,000, for exempted Church property in New York 
State, — corresponds with General Grant's estimate of $1,500, - 
000,000, for the exempted Church property of the United 
States in 1890 and (assuming that Church property doubles in 
value every decade) it also corresponds with our expectation 
of $100,000,000,000 as the value in the United States in 1950 
of Church property alone ; and if we add to this double that 
sum for other exempt property under the control of the Church 
(further to correspond with Mr. Wakeman' s figures), we have 
the startling figures of $200,000,000,000, as the value of the 
property of Churches and in control of them in 1950 and in 
1975 — during the life-time of many now living — the appalling 



sum 01 $1,000,000,000,000 



! I 



What reflection do these figures suggest? Do they not 
turn the thoughts of meditative people to those periods in 
the history of the world when a remedy was sought for the in- 
justice and wrong of government protection to Church prop- 
erty, by exempting it from taxation, and thus increase the 



152 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

holdings of property by the Church and the corresponding de- 
crease of the holdings of other property? 

In the contemplation of the above figures we cannot too 
earnestly or too speedily sound the note of warning of the con- 
sequences sure to befall our country, if the aphorism that 
" history repeats itself." prove true with us. 

Col. Ingersoll says : "If Church property is allowed to go 
without taxation, it is only a question of time when the 
Churches will own a large percentage of the property of the 
civilized world and thus become dangerous to the liberties of 
mankind." 

E. J. Donnell, Esq., of New York City, says : "Taxation 
and the private and corporate ownership of property have al- 
ways been practically recognized as inseparable conditions of 
industrial society. The time always comes, when society 
recognizes as a truth that property exempted from taxatio?i be- 
comes in time, in equity, the property of the whole community. 
The frequent confiscations of Church property during the past 
three or four centuries, could not have taken place without 
that justification. The long exemption from taxation enjoyed 
by the Church and the nobility in France fully justified the 
confiscation that took place during the great revolution. In 
my opinion the government stopped far short of its rights in 
that case." 

In the New York Tribune of February 22, 1873, is a com- 
munication from a Roman Catholic clergyman, well known 
for his enlightened mind and public spirit. After speaking of 
the great wrong to the non-exempt by the exemption of 
Church property, he says : " The State will sell the property 
of its citizens for non-payment of taxes. No one questions the 
right of the State to do so. Well, then, if one portion of the com- 
munity pays the taxes of another portion (which is practically 
done where the latter portion is exempt from taxation) may 
not such (former) portion become of right the owner of the 
exempted property? May it not, injustice, demand it? This 
is a serious view to take, but is it not equity ? Any how it 
has often led to confiscation. 



TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 153 

Mr. Wakeman says : "The question will have to be tried 
out, which is the real government of the people, the Republic 
or the Church ?" 

General Grant says : " Such vast amount of untaxed Church 
property, receiving all the protection and benefits of the 
government, without bearing its proportion of the burdens 
and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquies- 
cently by those who have to pay the taxes ; and if permit- 
ted to continue will probably lead to great trouble in our 
land before the close of the nineteenth century ; possibly to 
sequestration without constitutional authority and through 

blood r 

James Parton says : " In some countries of the old world one- 
fourth, in others one-half, of the property of the realm was 
exempt from taxation. ... At the beginning of the 
French revolution two-fifths in quantity and more than one- 
half in value of the real property in France belonged to the 
Church. . . . What was the consequence ? Bankruptcy, 
pauperism and finally revolution and confiscation. It is a 
philosophical truth that the same causes, under the same 
circumstances, will produce the same effects. Let us then 
learn wisdom from the folly of others and make all property 
bear its share of the common burdens ; and thus escape in- 
justice, dishonesty, pauperism, as well as revolution and con- 
fiscation. We commenced wrong by exempting any property 
from taxation. Let us take a new departure, before it is too 
late." 

The unjust practice of exempting Church property from 
taxation was part of that abominable system by which the 
people were forced to contribute their efforts, their influence 
and their money in support of the " divine right" of priests 
and of kings, and it is to the great Christian (!) emperor 
that we are indebted for inaugurating the practice. 

Says Mr. Duryea : "As early as the year 359, an attempt 
was made to have the lands belonging to the Church exempt 
from all taxation. It was due to the demoralizing influence 
of the reign of Constantine, when the Church united in the 



154 TAXATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

political intrigue of a corrupt empire. Throughout all the 
conflicts among nations to the present day, the evil influence 
of the uniting of Church and State may be traced through 
every Christian nation on the face of the earth." 

It is difficult to understand how any honorable Christian 
can defend such a wrong as that of compelling non-Christians 
to contribute to the support of the Christian religion, unless 
it be that Christians regard the dogmas of the Church of 
more importance than principle, than justice, than constitu- 
tional provisions of law. And it is also difficult to understand 
how any intelligent and patriotic Christian can shut his eyes to 
the calamitous consequence which, in time, is sure to result 
from the enormous and alarming growth of the Church, by 
reason of the system against which this article is written as 
a most profoundly earnest and solemn protest. 



INTOLERANCE. 

"There is no religious person who, according to his temperament, 
does not hate, despise, or pity, the adherents of a sect different from 
his own." 

" There does not yet exist upon the earth a true tolerance." 

" The dominant religion always makes its superiority felt in a very 
cruel and injurious manner towards the weaker sects." 

Everywhere a jealous God is worshipped." 

"Each nation believes itself his friend, to the exclusion of all 
others." 

" The founders of religions, and the priests who maintain them, 
have persuaded their votaries that the religions of others were ungodly 
and abominable." 

" This is the the way religion succeeded in closing the heart." — 
Jean Meslier. 

THERE is nothing more true of religion in general, than is 
stated in the above lines, but more especially is it true 
of the Christian religion. Christians assume a superiority of 
intelligence, which displays itself either in pitying, or in dis- 
daining, or in hating, any one who does not think as they do ; 
while the fact is that there cannot be found, the world over, a 
class of persons who are so utterly ignorant as to why they 
believe as they do, as are Christians. They never pretend to 
inquire for themselves into the truth of the remarkable doc- 
trines which they cherish ; on the contrary, pride themselves 
that their belief is not in accordance with the teachings of 
reason, but that they believe by faith. This " belief by faith " 
is carried to the extent that the more ignorant a Christian is, 
the more "faith" he has in his Christianity. Ignorance is 
said to be the mother of devotion ; so it is of intolerance. 
Moncure D. Conway says of intolerance, that it is "the least 



I56 INTOLERANCE. 

pardonable form of ignorance." So it need not be wondered 
that, of all intolerant people, Christians are the most intoler- 
ant ; as is evidenced by the fact that their persecutions have 
been more bitter than have been those of the adherents of any 
other religion. Christianity is responsible for the shedding of 
more blood than any other religion that ever existed. To the 
honor of the Buddhist religion, it may be said that it has never 
persecuted for opinions' sake, or shed one drop of human 
blood. The inhuman persecutions for witchcraft, which have 
so disgraced the name of Christianity, are utterly unknown in 
the religions of Brahma, or Zoroaster. 

' ' All the heathen persecutions of Christians put together, 
are nothing in comparison with the horrors of the crusade 
against watches, set on foot by members of the Christian 
Church." — (J. H. Long, in Popular Science Monthly for 
July, 1893.) 

The Moors in the middle ages gave protection to the Jews 
from Christian persecution. 

It is an historical fact that, after Christianity became ascend- 
ant in the fourth century, for more than a thousand years the 
light of literature became almost extinct. Its intolerance of 
new thought, of scientific discoveries, seriously retarded the 
progress of intelligence. Had it not been for the Christian 
bigots of those times, the great truths recently developed 
might have been known many centuries earlier. Europe is 
indebted to a rival religion (the Mohammedan) for the rescue 
of what intelligence Christianity permitted to remain. 

And so through the history of the Christian Church, from 
the days of Constantine till even now, may be found a record 
of greater intolerance, more bitterness of feeling, more exten- 
sive and cruel persecutions, than can be found in the history 
of any other system that ever existed. 

"The domestic unhappiness arising from difference of belief, 
was probably almost, or altogether, unknown in the world 
before the introduction of Christianity. — (Lecky.) 

Protestants denounce the exhibition of intolerance displayed 



INTOLERANCE. 1-57 

by the Catholic Church, but precisely the same spirit is mani- 
fested by the Protestant Church. There is little to choose 
between them. 

" We mock at the Catholic bigots at Rome, 
Who strive with their dogmas, man's reason to fetter ; 

We then turn to the Protestant bigots at home, 
To find that their dogmas are scarce a whit better." 

The Emperor Julian said : " The savage beasts are not more 
formidable to men than the Christians are to each other, when 
they are divided by creed and opinion." 

"Alike Papist and Protestant vote death and attainder to 
their conquered foes. The Churchman persecutes the Puritan ; 
the Puritan imprisons the Quaker; and to-day, had he the 
power, the bigot would muzzle every voice and printing press 
that utters tenets different from his own." — (F. Blanchard.) 

Torquemada, in his bigotry and cruelty, in bringing so many 
to the rack and the stake, was not a whit worse than John Calvin 
in his fiendish treatment of Servetus, Castellio, Philipp, 
Ameautt, Dubois, Gruet, Rolser, and hundreds of others, 
whose sole crime was that of differing in opinion from Calvin. 

Brooke Adams, in his Emancipation of Massachusetts, gives 
a record of intolerance, of bigotry, of persecution, of cruelty 
and of death inflicted on innocent persons in the seventeenth 
century by the Puritans, only equalled by similar records in 
the days of the Inquisition. 

Cardinal Newman speaks of the ' ' corrosive influence of 
reason." 

Rev. Dr. D. J. Burrill (Protestant) says : " The false beacon 
of these days is progress." 

Bishop Spottswood (R. C.) says : " I would that half the 
people of this nation should be brought to the stake and burnt, 
than that one man should read the Bible and form his own 
judgment from its contents." 

Spurgeon (Protestant) says : " Could ye roll into one mass 
all sins ; could ye take murder, and everything that is vile, 
and unite them into one vast globe of black corruption, they 



158 INTOLERANCE. 

would not equal the sin of unbelief. This is the monarch sin ; 
the quintessence of all guilt ; the mixture of the vemon of all 
crimes." 

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis says : " Heresy 
and unbelief are crimes, and are punished like other crimes in 
Catholic countries." 

Rev. Dr. Dowling (Protestant) in the Christian Intelligencer of 
May 8, 1889, broadly intimates that he who differs in opinion 
from him is an " intellectual and moral monstrosity." 

The Catholic Banner says : ' ' What jsl day of pleasure will 
that be for us, when we see anti-clericals writhing in the flames 
of the Inquisition. ' ' 

The St. Andrew's Cross says : " You must not blame some 
of us if we sometimes think that a cool cell in a comfortable 
jail, with a very abstemious diet, would be a well-earned re- 
ward for some of this loud-mouthed antichristian writing and 
teaching." 

The Catholic Mirror says : "Impudent sects of heretics, 
infidels, atheists, claim to be treated by States on an equal 
footing with the one true Church ! How shall we view this 
deplorable and perplexing problem ? ' ' 

Rev. Dr. Alfred Niven, of Philadelphia, says: "People are 
led to believe that the doctrines of Christianity are open ques- 
tions, which admit of discussion." 

" That pest of all others, most to be avoided, in a State, 
unbridled liberty of opinion." — (Pius IX.) 

" I have an absolute hatred of advanced thought." — (Spur- 

geon.) 

Father Ignatius says : " Virtue is safe only when it rests on 

religion ; religion is safe only when it rests on dogma ; dogma 
is safe only when it rests on the authority of the Church." 

The Chicago Evening Journal says : ' ' An immoral and 
lawless man, even a criminal, if he has a theoretical belief in 
God, is a good man and a valuable member of society, as 
compared with the Infidel, however pure his" life." 

The Western Watchman (R. C.)says : " Protestantism ! we 
would draw and quarter it ; we would impale it and hang it up 



INTOLERANCE. I59 

for crow's nests ; we would tear it with pincers and fire it with 
hot irons ; we would fill it with molten lead, and sink it in 
hell-fire a hundred fathoms deep." 

The Methodist Recorder says : " Agnosticism ! it is as 
ignominious as the atheism of Democritus ; more harmful than 
the idolatry of the Israelites, and more self-deteriorating than 
the profane impulses of the loathed profligate." 

Cardinal Baronius says : "God has made political govern- 
ment subject to the dominion of the spiritual Roman Catholic 
Church." 

Atone time, in Vermont and in some other of the New 
England States, under Protestant control, no person was 
allowed to vote unless a member of the Protestant Church. 

In 1700 a law was passed in this State condemning any 
popish priest to perpetual imprisonment, if found in the prov- 
ince ; while, if he escaped from jail, he was to be put to death. 

"We ought to hold as a fixed principle, that what I see 
white, I believe to be black, if the superior authorities define 
it to be so." — (Ignatius de Loyola.) 

" It is lawful to punish to the death such as labor to subvert 
the true religion." — (John Knox.) 

Romanists and Protestants equally insist upon religious 
teachings in the public schools, notwithstanding that the major- 
ity of the parents of school-children are opposed to such 
teachings. President Seelye, of Amherst college, voices the 
sentiments of both sects, in saying that ' ' the State must teach 
religion — if its subjects approve, well ; if not, the State must 
not falter. ' ' 

The intolerant spirit which has shown itself in our Sunday 
laws, has resulted in denying to those who do not believe in 
Sunday observance the rights which every citizen should par- 
ticipate in. In Tennessee, in Maryland, and in other States, 
estimable people have been imprisoned, some of them for 
weeks, for simply attending to their own necessary duties on 
Sunday. 

There is a (comparative) consistency in the utterances of 
the Romish Church, which boldly denies the right of private 



l6o INTOLERANCE. 

judgment, and we need not, therefore, be surprised when we 
read such sayings as the following : 

" The Church is certainly not tolerant in matters of doc- 
trine. True, and we glory in it. . . . The freedom of 
thinking is simply nonsense." — (Mgr. Segur.) 

" We are not advocates of religious freedom, and we repeat 
we are not. " — ( The Shepherd of the Valley. ) 

11 Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can 
be carried into effect without peril to the Roman Catholic 
Church."— (Bishop O'Connor.) 

"The Protestant is bound to be liberal to Catholics; but 
Catholics cannot be liberal to any party that rejects the 
Church."— (Tablet.) 

But a Church which came into being with the declaration of 
the right of private judgment, but which equally with the 
Romish Church denies it, is certainly inconsistent. 

The Protestant President (Oakes) of Harvard College, in 
1673, said: " I look upon toleration as the first-born of all 
abominations." 

The Episcopal Bishop (Seymour) of Illinois, says : " Men 
repudiate strict adherence to truth ; they explain away their 
pledges and promises ; evade their oaths by sophistry, and are 
thoroughly crafty and deceitful." One might suppose this 
language addressed to what Christians call Infidels, but no, 
it is addressed to those of the same communion with the 
Bishop, but who happen to differ from him on some doctrinal 
point. 

A Church of England clergyman, Rev. F. A. Grace, of 
Great Barling, Essex, has written a catechism in which is 
taught that "dissent is a great sin," and that dissenters M wor- 
ship God according to their own evil and corrupt imaginations, 
and therefore their worship is idolatrous." 

The Christian Advocate recently said : " It is impossible to 
teach morals properly, without accepting and recognizing the 
Christian religion as the only sufficient source and foundation 
of morality. " 

This might be called a sufficiency of intolerant impudence. 



INTOLERANCE. l6l 

But probably the most extreme exhibition of bigotry, the most 
sublime instance of unadulterated insolence, is to be found in 
the North American Review for January, 1893, is an article 
written by Rev. Leighton Colman, the Episcopal Bishop of 
Delaware. Two quotations may suffice, viz.: "He who 
denies the divinity of Christ, reduces Christianity to a system 
of willful deceit and shameless wickedness." (How are Chris- 
tians of the Unitarian belief pleased with this ?) ' ' A man who 
is not a Christian cannot be accounted a moral man." (Lis- 
ten to this, ye millions of upright, virtuous men and women 
of Hebrew, Agnostic, and other beliefs ! ) 

Constantine suppressed the medical schools of the Saracens, 
because of the difference in religious belief. 

Hon. Andrew D. White tells us that the Dominican Father 
Caccini insisted that "geometry is of the devil," and that 
" mathematics should be banished as the author of all here- 
sies." The Church authorities gave Caccini promotion. 

Father Inchofer declared that "argument against the im- 
mortality of the soul, the existence of God, the incarnation, 
should be tolerated, sooner than argument to prove that the 
earth moves." 

Men of learning and character, two or three centuries ago, 
were driven from educational institutions, because of the then ex- 
isting intolerance towards the Copernican system of astronomy. 
Precisely the same spirit is abroad to-day. Eminent men are now 
being driven from our universities, because of intolerance of 
the theory of evolution (a fact as well established as is the 
Copernican theory,) and other scientific discoveries. The 
expulsion of Prof. Winchell from the Chair of Geology at the 
Vanderbilt University, because he believed that man existed 
on the earth before the period assigned to Adam ; of Prof. 
Woodrow from the Chair of Natural Science in a theological 
seminary at Columbia, S. C, because he believed in evolution ; 
of Prof. Alexander from the State University of South Caro- 
lina, because he was unable to comprehend how three persons 
made one person, or one God ; of Prof. Tay, from a Ken- 
tucky college, for accepting as facts the latest demonstrations 



l62 INTOLERANCE. 

of science ; of several professors at the College of Beyrout, for, 
also, believing in the latest scientific discoveries ; are some of 
the recent instances of Protestant intolerance, which is worthy 
of the bigotry of the fifteenth century. 

In the case of Prof. Woodrow, the persecution which he 
endured is a disgrace to the age in which we live. The Presby- 
tery at Charleston adopted a resolution prohibiting any one in 
the Church from writing upon or criticising the decision of 
the General Assembly, which condemned Dr. Woodrow' s 
teachings. In addition to this, Dr. W., who had become a 
professor in the University of South Carolina, was boycotted 
by the faculty ; the students being kept away from his lectures 
by being told that their support would be cut off if they at- 
tended the Professor's lectures. 

Recently six ministers were expelled from the Reformed 
Presbyterian Church of Petersburg^, Va., for insisting upon 
the exercise of their right to vote at state and national 
elections. 

Three teachers in the Wilson Industrial School in New 
York City were recently discharged for holding what the 
managers regarded as heretical views on the question of 
Theosophy. 

Two highly respectable and intelligent persons in Stockholm, 
Sweden, a short time since, were imprisoned, one for one 
month, and the other for three months, for expressing disbelief 
in the dogmas of orthodox Christianity. 

In England, at the present time, legacies for diffusing Free- 
thought ideas can be confiscated. 

In this country it is doubtful if any will making bequests for 
similar purposes could stand, if the decision rests with a judge 
who is a church-member. In the Girard will case, Judge Story, 
while rendering no decision on the point, broadly intimates that 
funds could not be legally left for the dissemination of any 
opinion in opposition to those of Christianity. He says : * ' It is 
unnecessary to consider what would be the legal effect of a 
decision for the establishment of a school for the propagation 
of Judaism, or Deism, or any other form of Infidelity." 



INTOLERANCE. 163 

The spirit of three centuries ago, which persecuted, tortured, 
and murdered that greatest scholar of his day, Bruno, still 
lives in the "Vicar of Christ" (!) at Rome, as appears in 
the allocution of the present Pope, defending that inhuman act. 

There is to-day the same spirit among Christians which 
forced Roger Williams to seek the protection of the supposed 
savage, but humane, Massasoit, from the persecutions of a 
Christian sect ; which lodged in jail in Culpepper County, 
Va. , Baptist ministers for preaching immersion ; which brought 
the charge of blasphemy against Chevalier de la Barre, in 
1676, for not having removed his hat on the passing of a 
religious procession, resulting in the most inhuman and ex- 
cruciating torture and death ; which, in 181 2, sent Daniel 
Isaac Eaton to prison for eighteen months for publishing the 
"Age of Reason ;" which imprisoned the venerable Abner 
Kneeland in 1835, for differing from the orthodox on the 
question of Universalism. 

Human nature has been very much the same in all ages of 
the world, and there is scarcely a doubt that the intolerance of 
a few hundred years ago would again be rampant in our midst, 
if only the religious zealots had the power they formerly had. 
Is it unlikely that such bigots as the President of Amherst 
College, as the Bishop of Delaware, as the editor of the Chris- 
tian Advocate, would add to their intolerant utterances acts of 
persecution, of cruelty and of murder, similar to those which 
so long stained the pages of Christian history, if only they 
were sustained by the same public sentiment by which the 
atrocities of the Church in the centuries that are past were 
made possible ? By no means. President Seelye and the rest 
are no more human, or humane, than were the bigots of 
former times. 

It was public sentiment which sustained prominent and 
gifted men, like Sir Matthew Hale and Cotton Mather and 
John Wesley, in encouraging the torture and death of innocent 
women, because in the Christian's Bible the command is given, 
" Thou shalt not permit a witch to live." 

" In the name of God every possible crime has been com- 



164 INTOLERANCE. 

mitted, every conceivable outrage perpetrated. Brave men, 
loving women, beautiful girls and prattling babes, have been 
exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than 
fifty generations the Church has carried the black flag. Her 
vengeance has been measured only by her power. With the 
heart of a fiend she has hated. With the clutch of avarice she 
has grasped. Pitiless as famine, merciless as fire. Such is the 
history of the Church of God." 

Fiendish as have been the acts which Col. Ingersoll, as 
above, has portrayed, they would be re-enacted to-day by the 
adherents of Christianity — Protestant and Catholic alike — under 
circumstances similar to those which hitherto existed ; for 
religion not only enslaves the mind, but it makes captive the 
heart as well. 

An instance in my own experience may illustrate this. I 
recently met a lady, a Christian, a person of unusual natural 
graces of character ; gentle, kindly, intelligent ; whose ac- 
quaintance I first made about forty years ago. It gave me 
great pleasure to meet again this friend of former years: The 
conversation which followed was most agreeable, until it 
turned upon religion, and almost instantly she assumed an 
entirely new character ; becoming harsh, bitter, censorious, un- 
charitable, intolerant, unreasoning, unjust ; revealing a most 
complete change of nature. 

Had I defended vice and denounced virtue, she could not 
have animadverted more severely on my opinions ; had I been 
guilty of every known crime, she could scarcely have been 
more acrimonious. In vain I claimed what seemed to me the 
reasonable right to do my own thinking (and accorded, of 
course, the same right to her), and insisted that no good 
reason existed why I should accept the conclusions of others 
(who had no more knowledge on the subject of religion than I 
had, no matter how much they claimed to know). In vain I 
pleaded that I was actuated by as high and as pure motives as 
anyone could possibly be, and that as she acted on what she 
regarded as her conscientious duty, so I was but following the 
dictates of my own conscience in asserting and acting upon 



INTOLERANCE. 165 

the views I had expressed, and that it was an utter im- 
possibility for me — as an honest person, as true to conviction — 
to do otherwise. But all to no purpose. Her natural kind- 
ness of heart, her amiable qualities, as well as her good sense, 
were all sunk — deeply sunk — in her unyielding intolerance. 
How true, I thought then, were the lines quoted at the begin- 
ning of this article : ' ' This is the way religion succeeded in 
closing the heart." 

There is no objection whatever to Christian people believing 
in a place of eternal punishment, in a blissful heaven, in a per- 
sonal Devil, in a God (even of such imperfections as the Bible 
represents), in angels who have not fallen, as well as in those 
who have, in the story of creation, in miracles, in an infallible 
Church, a divinely ordained ministry, in an inspired book, or 
in aught else that is unprovable or improbable ; these are 
mere matters of opinion, and any one who can so believe, is 
unquestionably entitled to such belief; but where the in- 
tolerance shows itself is in asserting that such belief is necessarily 
meritorious, and that those who do not so believe are neces- 
sarily immoral and criminal ; utterly ignoring the fact that 
belief is involuntary, that it is impossible for any one to believe 
unless convinced, by reason, of the truth of such belief. 

But as orthodox Christianity is never likely to relinquish 
its dogmatic, pharisaical, unreasoning, unjust and intolerant 
position, every indication of the disintegration or decay of the 
Christian religion should be hailed with delight by all who 
believe in the fullest tolerance of opinion, by all lovers of 
mental liberty. 



RELIGION. 

" In religion, 
What damned error." 

— Merchant of Venice, iii, 2. 

THERE is no necessary connection between the etymology 
of the word religion and the use it has been put to. 
It is derived from two Latin words, re and ligo, signifying to 
bind back. The latter Latin word is that from which the 
words ligature and ligament (binding together) are derived. 
So that its original meaning suggests association, compact, 
fraternity ; not necessarily in matters of belief in certain creeds, 
but in any effort for good (or perhaps even for evil). Religion, 
as generally understood, lacks the essential element which the 
derivation of the word suggests and indicates. It does not 
bind heart to heart in the great brotherhood of mankind, in 
any comprehensive sense. As " Vindex " in October Magazine) 
says: ''Religion is no bond of union, except between the 
members of a sect who all agree upon a dogmatic creed and 
form of worship." Associations, such, for instance, as Prof. 
Felix Adler's " Society for Ethical Culture," or the " Manhat- 
tan Liberal Club," are quite as truly religious as are Chris- 
tianity or Buddhism. None of the believers in what are 
designated as the religions of the world, at least none of the 
"great" religions recognize this fact. They assume that 
there cannot be any religion unless it declares certain tenets 
which all who subscribe to are expected to accept with 

"Unquestioned faith — unvitalized by thought." 
Such tenets are with reference to matters about which it is ut- 
terly impossible to ascertain anything, and yet the adherents 

(166) 



RELIGION. 167 

of such religions have the same implicit belief in them as 
though they were demonstrated facts. 

"All faiths are to their own believers just." 

Every religion is the result of environment and instruc- 
tion. We take to our religion just as we adopt the customs 
and habits which prevail in the different countries in which our 
lot is cast. Gibbon says that " religion is a mere question of 
geography." 

There is no religion but what is founded in superstition, with 
an understratum of ignorance. 

" The germ of all religions may be traced to human igno- 
rance. ' ' — ( I ngersoll. ) 

Superstition encourages fear, and the priesthood of every 
religion make the most of the ignorance and fear and credulity 
of those over whom these religious teachers are placed. 

"By education most have been misled; 
We so believe because we so are bred ; 
The priest continues what the nurse began, 
And thus the boy imposes on the man." — (Dryden.) 

According to the late Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, d. d., 
there are one thousand religions in the world, every one of 
them teaching entirely different beliefs from the others, so that 
if one be true, then nine hundred and ninety-nine are (more 
or less) false ; and yet there is a similarity between them. 
They all, or nearly all, profess belief in an (unknowable) God, 
and an (also unknowable) future state. But these beliefs must 
be subdivided, for there are believers in a God of personality, 
in a God of immanence, in a God of transcendence, and there 
is no harmony whatever in these respective beliefs. There are 
also believers in an eternal future, where the few pass to glory 
and happiness, and the many to misery and despair ; in a 
modified future state, where punishment is limited ; in universal 
salvation ; in Nirvana, or an eternal sleep ; in the transmigra- 
tion of human souls to other human beings, and to lower 
animals. There are worshipers of the "sun-hero," of the 



1 68 RELIGION. 

" moon-goddess," of the four winds, of the cow, the crocodile, 
the snake, and of almost every other conceivable object of 
worship. There are Monotheists, Ditheists, Tritheists, Poly- 
theists, Pantheists, Henotheists, Theanthropists, Spiritists,- 
Quetists, and, in fine, every other variety of belief in super- 
naturalism, preier-naturalism, and ^-naturalism. 

There can, of course, be no consensus of opinion among the 
adherents of such extremely divergent beliefs. 

A Chinese proverb says: "Religions are various, but 
reason is one, and we are all brothers." 

Some one has said : 

"Religions are opinions— -prove but one, 
And all men mingle in a common faith." 

The intolerance manifested by the believers in the different 
religions, was aptly portrayed by the imaginary conference de- 
scribed in " Volnef s Ruins,'" and is confirmed by the actual 
conference of the recent Congress of Religions at Chicago. In 
both the imaginary and actual congress is shown the per- 
sistence of each in the peculiar tenets of their respective 
religions. Each religion claims for itself entire truth, and for 
those who differ from it entire falsity. The Congress of 
Religions at Chicago has undoubtedly been productive of 
much good. It has shown to the adherents of the prevailing 
religion in this country — what they seemed to be utterly 
ignorant of before — that there is as much sincerity, as much 
honesty, as much morality, as much humanity, as much 
loving-kindness, and, indeed (if they are candid enough to 
admit it), as much truth, in every other religion, as there is in 
Christianity. Indeed, if Christians make a study of comparative 
religions, they will find that their religion lacks many of the 
features which make many other religions attractive. Cer- 
tainly Christianity has been more intolerant, persecuting and 
cruel, than any religion which ever existed. So far from its 
being a religion of love, it has been one of hate. So far from 
its having been an aid to civilization and literature and science, 
it has been their most inveterate foe. 



RELIGION. 169 

Hon. Andrew D. White tells us how the Catholic universities 
of Europe excluded the Copernican and Newtonian demonstra- 
tions, and how "down to the present time the two great 
universities of Protestant England, and nearly all of her inter- 
mediate colleges, under clerical supervision, have excluded the 
natural and physical sciences as far as possible," and "how 
the most careful modern thought is also excluded from proba- 
bly nine-tenths of the universities and colleges of the United 
States r 

Christianity is the most narrow-minded, self-righteous, ex- 
clusive, and assertive, of all the religions of the world. While 
other religions, or many of them, are catholic in spirit, Chris- 
tianity seems to pride itself in inculcating those precepts of 
the Bible which are found in passages which tell of the " few 
that are chosen," of the "narrow path," of the "straight 
gate," and other quotations in so constant use by the pharisa- 
ical sect. 

Comparison with other religions shows the spirit of Chris- 
tianity in its true light. Compare it, for instance, with 
Buddhism. 

Says Sir Lepel Griffin : " How poorly do the results of 
Christianity show by the side of even a negative creed like 
Buddhism." 

"Buddhism owes its success to its catholic spirit, and its 
beautiful morality." — (Winwood Reade.) 

" If ever beat upon this earth a heart which knew no 
bounds, it was that of Gautama, and his spirit has been that of 
his followers." — (Rev. John W. Chadwick.) 

" Buddhism never persecuted for opinion's sake, never shed 
one drop of human blood." — Moncure D. Conway.) 

" No Buddhist ever burned a fellow-being for heresy." — 
(Rev. Theo. L. Williams.) 

In comparing Christianity with Mohammedanism, we have 
the following testimony. Canon Taylor, of the Church of 
England, says : " Islamism has done more for civilization than 
Christianity has done or can do. Islamism is the most power- 
ful total abstinence association in the world, whereas the ex- 



170 RELIGION. 

tension of European trade means the extension of drunkenness 
and vice, and the degradation of the people. Islam introduces 
a knowledge of reading and writing, decent clothing, personal 
cleanliness, veracity, and self-respect. Its restraining and 
civilizing effects are marvelous. How little have we to show 
for the vast sums of money, and all the precious lives lavished 
upon Africa. Christian converts are recorded by thousands, 
Moslem converts by millions" 

1 ' While the Christians in Europe were groveling in the ut- 
most ignorance, holding fanatically to a geocentric and flat- 
earth theory, the learned Saracens declared the world to be 
round, translated the -writings of the Greek philosophers, en- 
couraged the study of law, medicine, chemistry, geometry and 
astronomy, and established schools, hospitals and libraries. " — 
(Herbert Junius Hardwicke, M. D. , F. R. c. s.) 

"When Omar captured Jerusalem (637), every Christian 
life was spared. When Godfrey seized the Holy City, ten 
thousand Moslems were cruelly put to death." — (Ibu Ishak, 
Are?ia y September, 1892.) 

The discredit of destroying the Alexandrian libraries has 
usually been attributed to Mohammedanism. They were so 
destroyed in 640. But the Christians set the example by de- 
stroying one of them in 390. 

T. W. Higginson tells us that a philanthropist goes to 
England to implore Christians not to teach young Hindoos the 
use of strong drink; and that in China ''men interrupt the 
missionaries by asking them why, if these doctrines be true, a 
Christian nation forced opium upon a Pagan Emperor. ' ' 

Archdeacon Farrar says that ' ' where the English have made 
one convert to Christianity, they have made one hundred 
drunkards." 

The Christian-at- Work says that where there has been one 
Christian convert, two hundred have become addicted to the 
opium habit. 

Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., says: "When Pagans are told 
that England and the United States are "Christian" nations, 
they naturally conclude that whatever comes to them from 



RELIGION. I^I 

these Christian lands represents Christianity. What wonder, 
then, that intelligent men refuse to accept a religion which 
forces the opium trade on China, and the rum traffic on 
Africa and elsewhere, under Christian flags, which carry now 
and then a stray missionary along with thousands of rum casks, 
and hundreds of drunken, licentious, Christian sailors, who go 
ashore to ' paint red ' pagan cities, and indulge their beastly 
passions." 

O. D. Janes, in the American Non- Conformist, says : " The 
Church of England is an aristocracy that goes all over the 
world with the Bible in one hand, a sword in the other, and a 
baggage-train of opium and whisky." 

What can the disciples of Confucius think of Christianity, 
when a so-called Christian nation violates its treaties, and 
enacts the most unneighborly, unbrolherly, unjust, unfeeling 
and uncivilized laws for the purpose of excluding from our 
shores some of the most peaceful, sober and industrious people 
of the globe ; and in which nations thousands of these unoffend- 
ing Chinese have been most cruelly persecuted, and most 
brutally murdered. The misrepresentations made by Chris- 
tians with regard to other religions, have received a decided 
check and a just rebuke, during the recent Congress of 
Religions at Chicago. As instances, the Buddhist priest, who 
there spoke, says: "The story of Juggernaut, which Chris- 
tian missionaries have, for so many years, retailed to their 
brethren at home, has no foundation whatever, in fact. A 
committee, composed of eminent Englishmen, has declared 
the Christian idea of Juggernaut a myth. Death and blood 
are repulsive to our people. This Christian story is exploded 
and gone into oblivion." 

Every Christian pulpit orator rises to unusual heights of elo- 
quent indignation, condemnation and vituperation, in picturing 
to his credulous hearers the worship of images, the "bowing 
down to stocks and to stones" of the "heathen" Hindoo. 
In answer to this Christian calumny, hear what Vivekananda, 
a representative of Brahmanism (at the Congress of Religions), 
says: "No Indian idolator, as such, believes the piece of 



172 RELIGION. 

stone, metal or wood, before his eyes, to be his God in any 
sense of the word. He takes it only as a symbol of the all- 
pervading Goodhead and uses it as a convenient object 
for purposes of concentration, which being accomplished, he 
does not hesitate to throw it away. ' ' 

As illustrating the trouble, in foreign countries, caused by 
Christian missionaries, Bishop Shibata, of the Shinto sect 
from Japan, said : "In 1837 the Christian missionaries com- 
bined with their converts and caused a tragic and bloody 
rebellion against the country. . . . Christianity has brought 
riot and bloodshed in its train. Verily, it has brought, instead 
of peace, a sword." 

The New York Herald, in giving an account of the above 
speech, adds : "It was then that the audience of four thousand 
men and women — most of them Christians — rose to their feet 
and cried, ' Shame, shame upon the missionaries.' " 

This same audience was much moved by Mozoomdar, a 
Hindoo, who spoke of the beautiful humanity, the noble faith 
and gentle practices of the great sect to which he belonged. 
The newspaper reporter in closing an account of this speech, 
says: "The truth and beauty which he embodied in re- 
ligions, heretofore practically unknown to the mass of Chris- 
tendom, were laid bare to wondering, and almost reverential, 
eyes." 

The American Sentinel says of the Congress, that ' ' it will 
certainly have a tendency to create the impression that one 
religion is about as good as another. Indeed it has done 
something in this direction already." 

The Protestant says the Romanist is superstitious, because 
the latter worships the "Virgin Mary," bows to the crucifix 
and performs other irrational acts of devotion. The Romanist 
says the heathen are superstitious, because they worship other 
images. There is scarcely any difference between the super- 
stitions of either of these classes of worshipers ; the worship of 
one is equally as absurd as that of the other. The Protestant 
belief in a God of personality, or rather in three personalities ; 
with the human, or rather inhuman, frailties which the Bible 



RELIGION. 173 

attributes to God ; in a personalty, also, of evil ; in endless 
torture ; are superstitions quite as much opposed to intelligent 
thought as are those of any other religionist in any part of the 
globe. 

There is certainly little to choose, so far as the theology of 
the different religions are concerned, while the moral code, and 
the precepts in support of it, are found to be almost identical 
in every religion. 

The great religions of the world differ in degree only, not 
in kind. . . . There is not a lofty sentiment or a noble 
aspiration in the Bible which cannot be paralleled in the relig- 
ious literature of China or India or Persia or Egypt or Greece 
or Rome." — Rev. John W. Chadwick.) 

Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tse, Mencius, Zoroaster, Manu, and 
others, who lived, many of them centuries before Christ, taught 
the same moral precepts that Christ did. 

" Do not to others what you would not that men should do 
to you."— (Hillel.) 

11 Return good for evil." — (Brahmin Text.) 

" Whatever people may think of you, do that which you be- 
lieve to be right." — (Pythagoras.) 

" Overcome evil by good." — (Buddhist Precept.) 

" He is the greatest man who patiently endures injury." — 
(Confucius.) 

1 ' Loving compassion is the noblest of qualities. ' ' — (Lao-tse. ) 

"Keep pure in body and mind." — (Zoroaster.) 

11 Holiness is the best of all good." — (The Avesta.) 

" A man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him 
the protection of an ungrudging love." — (The Tripitaka.) 

"Nothing is nobler than high-mindedness and gentleness 
and philanthropy and doing good." — (Epictetus.) 

Max M tiller says : ' ' There is no religion which does not say, 
1 do good and avoid evil.' " 

The Chicago Times recently said : " The morals of civiliza- 
tion are not at all based on religion, certainly not on Chris- 
tianity, since the so-called 'golden rule' — the highest principle 
of morality — antedates Christianity a thousand years." 



174 RELIGION. 

This saying is well exemplified in the lives, at least, of 
Seneca, Pliny, Tacitus, Plutarch, Galen and Marcus Aurelius. 

It is claimed for Christianity that it is an original religion. 
On the contrary, its same beliefs, dogmas and teachings, its 
same rites, ceremonies and customs, are to be found in nearly 
every religion which preceded it. The myths of creation, the 
fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel, those relating to 
Samson, Jonah and Jacob, of parthenogenesis, anthromor- 
phism, the trinity, the atonement, eternal punishment, resur- 
rection, ascension, God, Satan, angels, devils, heaven, and 
hell, are every one of them inculcated in religions older than 
Christianity. All are the outgrowth of — or evolution from — 
what Christians call Pagan religions. 

Says Rev. R. Heber Newton : " Tonsured head, and silvery 
bells, and swinging censer ; Christmas and Easter festivals ; 
the sacramental use of bread, and of water, and of wine ; the 
sign of the Cross ; Holy Madonna and Child ; are all ancient, 
human institutions, rites and symbols. Scratch a Christian 
and you come upon a Pagan. Christianity is re-baptized 
Paganism." 

"We find much Paganism, in Christianity, in its creed, 
practice and ceremonies." — (Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D.) 

St. Augustine says : " The same thing which is now called 
Christian religion, existed among the ancients." 

Origen says : " Paganism and Christianity have a common 
origin, and are really one and the same religion." 

"The grave-clothes of Paganism became the swaddling- 
wraps of Christianity ... It (Christianity) administered 
on the estate of Paganism, and appropriated most of the prop- 
erty to its own use." — (Ingersoll.) 

"There is not a rite, ceremony, or belief, we now practice, 
or profess, that cannot be traced to its origin in Chaldean 
idolatry, in Assyrian, Egyptian, or Roman mythology." — 
(Eckler, Gibbon's Christianity, p. 96.) 

" The Christians of the second century adopted certain rites 
and ceremonies employed in what was known as the ' Heathen 
Mysteries. ' ' ' — (Mosheim. ) 



RELIGION. 175 

One religion has evolved from another. The Encyclopaedia 
Britannica says : " The religions of Asia and of Europe are 
the common offspring of one primitive religion." 

Each new religion is a branch, so to speak, of the tree of 
some older religion. The Buddhist religion is a product of 
the Brahmanistic religion. Roman mythology was derived 
from that of Greece. Christianity grew out of Judaism. 
Mohammedanism is an offshoot of Christianity, at least to the 
extent that Moses and Christ are recognized as prophets in the 
Mohammedan belief. Mormonism is grafted upon Christianity. 

. . . . " religions take their turns : 

'Twas Jove's — 'tis Mahomet's — and other creeds 

Will rise with other years." — Childe Harold. 

While some religions are more peaceful, tolerant, humane 
and loving than others, religion in general has not practised 
these virtues. The God of one religion being different, both 
in name and conception, from the God of every other religion, 
jealousy and rivalry is created among the various religions. 
Hence the persecutions and wars which have made the history 
of religion the saddest, the most cruel, and the bloodiest of all 
the histories of the world ; for there is something in religion 
which seems to engender greater bitterness, to beget greater 
hatred, to stimulate to greater acts of cruelty, and to encour- 
age greater sacrifice of human life, than is produced from 
any other single cause. 

In Butler's Hudibras we read of 

" Such as do build their faith upon 
The holy text of pike and gun ; 
Decide all controversies by 
Infallible artillery ; 
And from their doctrine orthodox, 
By apostolic blows and knocks, 
Call fire and sword and desolation 
A godly, thorough Reformation." 

M. Babcock says that "religion has filled the world with 
contentions, quarrels, wars and bloodshed. . . . Men 



176 RELIGION. 

have become deadly enemies to each other, when they should 
have remained friends and brothers. They have spilt each 
other's blood, mutilated each other's bodies, and made corpses 
of millions of their fellow-beings, while madly following the 
monsters of their own imagination, and have made demons of 
themselves. The worship of God has made devils of men." 
Voltaire illustrates the same thought : 

" Religions raging with inhuman zeal 
Nerves every arm and points the fatal steel : 
Whatever names divine the parties claim, 
In craft and fury they are all the same." 

The inconsistency — the cruelty, credulity and absurdity — of 
religion may, also, be illustrated by the following lines : 

" I see ten thousand men advance 

With musket, cannon, glave and lance : 

They fight until the soil is red 

And half have gone to meet the dead ; 

While in a village church not far away. 

I hear the austere, bearded, preacher say, 

' Poor mortals here below 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.' " 

When success had, at one time, attended one of the two 
Christian nations which were engaged in the fearful Franco- 
German conflict, a telegram, in substance, if not in the actual 
words, went from the Emperor William to the Empress 
Augusta : 

"We laid ten thousand Frenchmen low , 
Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 

Can it be possible that praise can be tendered, by the intelli- 
gent and the humane, to a being who could, and yet did not, 
prevent the strife of armies, the clash of arms, the slaughter of 
innocent men, the moans of the dying, the shrieks of the 
maimed, the woe in homes, the tears of widows, the cries of 
orphans, the destruction of property, the distress of commu- 
nities, the ruin of nations ? 



RELIGION. 177 

Even in the enlightened to-day is being carried on the same 
fierce wars, the same frightful carnage, by Christians, Moham- 
medans, Hindoos, and other religious sects, and all with the 
same fanatical zeal, the same delusive superstition, the same 
ignorant faith. What wonder that religious people are more 
bitter, intolerant, persecuting and cruel than others, when they 
regard as authority the creeds in which they profess to believe. 
For example, take the revolting creed or doctrine formulated 
in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It has been repudi- 
ated by very many of the communion who apparently accept 
it, and it has forced from some of its more liberal and kindly 
members expressions of contempt and disgust. Rev. Dr. 
Parkhurst, of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, in 
New York City, speaking of it, says : " It is a horrible doc- 
trine." 

Some one has said : " History shows that religion has been 
more relentless under the auspices of the Christian theology, 
than under those of all the other theologies of the world com- 
bined. . . . It is the only one in the universe cruel enough 
to burn a man to death for merely holding an opinion." 

Shelley portrays it thus : 

" Prolific fiend, 
Who peoplest earth with demons, hell with men, 
And heaven with slaves." 

But we are not left to the alternative of selecting such a re- 
ligion, or of being altogether without one {if one is deemed 
necessary.) Even in the Bible, with all its unreasonable and 
inhuman teachings and doctrines, can be found some of the 
ingredients of a true religion. In the Epistle of James we read 
that " pure and undefiled religion is to visit the widow and the 
fatherless in their affliction, and to keep one's self unspotted 
from the world. ' ' How transcendently superior is this to the 
usual dogmas taught in orthodox churches. In the October 
number of the Freethinker's Magazine, " Vindex " says that 
1 ' the Church never was Christian. ' ' No more truthful saying 
was ever uttered. Nothing (or almost nothing) Christ-like, is 



178 RELIGION. 

taught from any of the so-called Christian pulpits. What is 
there taught is the theology founded — not by Christ, but by 
Paul, and the superstructure of which is the work of A than - 
asius, Augustine, Gregory "the Great," John Calvin, Jona- 
than Edwards, Joseph Cook, and others of like sacerdotal 
fame? 

Lincoln said that when he found a Church whose only creed 
was the " Golden Rule," he would join that Church. 

Professor Felix Adler has established just such a Church, 
or, rather, association, known as the "Society for Ethical 
Culture, in New York City," 

"A temple, neither pagod, mosque, nor church." 

Its only creed, or tenet, or teaching, is that of duty each to 
the other, and its only belief is in beneficence — in deeds of 
love. His audiences, every Sunday morning, are far in ex- 
cess of any of the Christian churches. He represents the relig- 
ion of Christ far more than does Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop 
Potter, Rev. John Hall, D. D., or any other representative of 
pseudo-Christianity. The congregations of these (falsely- 
called) Christian churches are in perfect similitude to that 
pharisaical sect which Christ so earnestly and so constantly 
rebuked. Rev. Carlos Martyn, D. D. , says : ' ' Pharisaism is 
resurrected and baptized with a Christian name." It is these 
same Christian Pharisees who continually sneer at what they 
choose to call ' ' mere morality. ' ' 

Bishop Latimer said : " Religion, pure religion, standeth not 
in the wearing of a monk's cowl ; but in righteousness , justice 
and well-doing." 

" The one religion, pure and perfect, is fidelity to all the 
relations in which we are placed to one another." — (Rev. Dr. 
Furness.) 

" True religion is a matter of heart and conduct." — (Rev. 
Dr. Alfred Momerie.) 

" There is but one religion — the religion of truth." — (Dr. 
Paul Carus, President Congress of Religions.) 

A religion that is broad, rational, practical, humane, en- 



RELIGION. 179 

nobling, sympathetic, ethical, philanthropic, altruistic ; which 
substitutes Amo for Credo ; which subjects faith to reason ; 
which puts natural law in the place of miracle ; which subor- 
dinates tradition, legend and fable to history, reality and fact ; 
which regards truth as authority (and not "authority as 
truth ; ") which disowns superstition and disclaims dogmatism ; 
which revolts at the suppression of inquiry ; which rejects the 
astronomical, geological and biological absurdities taught in 
the Book of Genesis ; but, rather, which invites investigation 
into every new avenue of thought, which is in harmony with 
the latest discoveries of science ; and which, in fine, insists 
upon, and will ever persist in demanding, the most compre- 
hensive and complete mental freedom ; is a religion such as is 
in accord with the spirit of the age, and finds constantly in- 
creasing adherents among the intelligent, the benevolent, and 
the truth-loving. Such a religion finds expression in the lines 
of Pope : 

" To no creed confined, 
The world our home, our brothers all mankind ; 
Do good, love truth, be just and fair withal ; 
Exalt the right — though every ism fall." 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

THERE seems to have been an opinion prevailing among 
past generations that religion was a necessary part of 
education. Such opinion is, however, gradually changing, 
under the influence of modern rational thought. It used to be 
considered that no person without the prefix of " Reverend" 
to his name was eligible to the presidency of any college. Now 
we have two colleges in New York City presided over by 
gentlemen who are not clergymen, and there are many other 
colleges in the country of which it is not thought necessary 
that a clerical should be at the head. Why should not such 
be the case ? What has religion to do, necessarily, with educa- 
tion ? What connection is there between religion and any of 
the primary, or of the higher, branches of education? Young 
people are not sent to school or to college to learn religion, but 
to be instructed in those branches of study which will enable 
them to acquire such knowledge as may be useful in the vari- 
ous avocations to which they may be called, and religion is 
entirely unnecessary to fit them for any of these avocations, 
except such as may be inclined to select the ministry as an oc- 
cupation, and for all such there are theological institutions, 
where theology is taught as an entirely distinct and separate 
study. 

Rudimentary education consists in the teaching of read- 
ing, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, etc. Why in- 
troduce religion into these studies ? In the higher branches 
of mathematics, chemistry, astronomy, microscopy, literature, 
the languages, etc., why should religion be intruded into 
these studies? Religion is entirely irrelevant to any such 

(180) 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. l8l 

branches of study. There are schools for the teaching of 
penmanship, for the learning of trades ; law and medical 
schools ; business colleges ; in none of which is religion 
taught, and what an absurdity the introduction of religion 
would be in connection with any such instructions. Rev. 
Howard Crosby, d. d., said that "we might as well insist on 
reading the Bible in a machine shop, as in a public school." 

There is a proper place to teach religion, not in any school 
or college, the studies in which have no necessary connection 
whatever with religion ; but religion (for those who desire it) 
should (only) be taught in the home, in the Sunday-school, or 
in the church. 

We may not complain so much of the teaching of religion in 
schools and colleges, where we pay for our children's instruc- 
tion in the various departments of learning, knowing that 
religion is there taught ; though it is a great wrong to those 
who do not believe in the prevailing religion, that there are so 
few educational institutions where religion is not taught ; but 
it certainly is the rankest injustice to compel us to pay 
(through the tax levy) for the support of schools, academies 
and colleges, in which is taught a religion that we may abhor. 
It is a violation of the great principle, which is the boast of our 
Republic, of equal rights and of exact justice to all ; of our 
constitutional prerogative that we cannot be compelled to con- 
tribute to the support of any religion of which we do not ap- 
prove ; of that inestimable, wise and just claim, which so 
distinguishes us from almost every other nation, the utter and 
entire separation of Church and State. 

The teaching of religion in the public schools and other in- 
stitutions, under State support, is a wrong, which no con- 
sistent person, no one in whose character is the element of jus- 
tice, no true patriot, can, for a moment, advocate or palliate. 

It is not necessary to discuss the question as to whether 
religion has been, or has not been, a benefit to mankind. 
There are those who think in the affirmative, and those who 
think in the negative. It is sufficient to know that the latter 
class think so — and it may be added that it is a very large 



l82 RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

class, and which class is entitled to all privileges and im- 
munities which every other citizen is entitled to. 

Religion was very properly — and designedly — omitted from 
any notice whatever in the formation of our Constitution, and 
in order to emphasize the idea of its disassociation with the 
State, the first of the constitutional amendments demands that 
' ' Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion. ' ' 

The Constitution of the State of New York, and of several 
other States, are also emphatic in enunciating the principle 
that religion is — and ever shall be — entirely separate and 
distinct from the State. And yet, in the face of these explicit 
declaration of both United States and State law, every one — 
including those who believe religion to have retarded civiliza- 
tion, suppressed learning and discountenanced science — is 
compelled to pay to the State his quota of what is taxed to 
support educational institutions, where a religion, which is 
repulsive to him, is taught. 

This unjust system is advocated by those who (falsely) claim 
that there is no justice, no honor, no fidelity, no integrity, no 
purity, no truth, outside of the Christian Church. 

Listen to what is said by ministers of righteousness {but 
not of Tightness), by preachers of Godliness {but not of good- 
ness'), by teachers of the "Golden Rule" (but who do not 
practice it). 

Bishop Chitard, of Vincennes, says : " Six hundred thousand 
pupils are now receiving instruction, at an expense to the (Cath- 
olic) Church of $9,000,000 a year, and I demand that this 
$9,000,000 should be paid by the State out of the money 
raised by taxation." (!) 

Archbishop Purcell says : ' ' We cannot approve of that 
system of education for youth which is apart from instruction 
in the Catholic faith." (!) 

Pius IX. declares : " Education of children in a knowledge 
of natural things, apart from the Catholic faith, is a damnable 
heresy." (!) 

Bishop Gilmoury-of Cleveland, Ohio, says : "We solemnly 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 183 

charge and most positively require every Catholic to send his 
children to a Catholic school, and authorize confessors to refuse 
the sacraments to such parents as disobey." (!) 

Other Roman Catholic utterances of similar intolerance, in- 
justice, selfishness and self-righteousness, could be quoted. 
Another Romish Archbishop (Ireland) so insists upon the 
teaching of religion in the public schools, that he expressed 
himself as favoring the teaching of the Protestant — rather than 
no — religion. And a Protestant clergyman (Rev. Abbott E. 
Kittridge, of Chicago), has said that "if the position of the 
public school is to be . . . No Bible . . , then I 
stand with the Roman Catholics for religious schools. ' ' 

Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston, of course, insists upon relig- 
ions teaching in the public schools. He demands that educa- 
tion must be supplemented with " the theology of the fall of 
man, the immortality of the soul, the judgment to come," etc. 

Dr. Shearer, President of Davidson College, N. C, de- 
nounces the common school system of the country, advocating 
the education of children of Protestants in schools fostered by 
the Church (only). 

Ex-President Woolsey, of Yale College, denied the right of 
the State to teach the discoveries of science, " if theism and 
revelation be banished from the scholastic halls," and adds, 
" why permit evolution to be publicly professed more than pre- 
destination ? " (!) 

The late Rev. A. A. Hodge, d. d. , of Princeton Seminary, 
in insisting upon religious teaching in the public schools, says : 
" Christians have the power in their own hands. The danger 
arises simply from the weak and sickly sentimentally respect- 
ing . . . the supposed equitable rights of an Infidel minor- 

ityr (!) 

President Seelye, of Amherst College (like Dr. Hodge), 
evidently is of the opinion that minorities have no rights which 
majorities are bound to respect. He says : " The State must 
teach religion. If the consciences of its subjects approve, 
well ; if not the State must not falter. Undoubtedly , if the 
State enter upon the work of religious instruction, the con- 



184 RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

sciences of some of its subjects might be invaded, but no wise 
government will let the consciences of its subjects control its 
public policy. . . , The question of conscience has no rel- 
evancy to the matter." (! !) 

Prof. Noah K. Davis, of the University of Virginia, alluding 
to the above utterance of President Seelye, says : "There is 
a breath of Torquemada in that. . . . What is a constitu- 
tion, but an aegis of the minority, to shield them from tyranny 
of the majority ? To the chivalric and just the feeble are 
sacred. ' ' 

Rev. Galusha Anderson, d. d., of Salem, Mass. — also in 
allusion to what President Seelye has said — remarks : " This 
is the grim doctrine that fed, for years, the fires of Smith - 
field. Conscience is a domain into which human governments 
have no right to intrude. Can a State teach religion without 
striking down the rights of conscience? But, it is asked, 
ought not the State to compel the reading of the Bible — 
without note or comment — in its schools ? To do this, when 
men are in conscience opposed to it, is to strike down, by the 
power of the State the doctrine of religious liberty for the 
establishment of which so many of our fathers poured out their 
blood like water." 

The Day Star says : ' ' Nine-tenths of all the blood and rapine, 
the murder and oppression, of the world, has been caused by the 
attempt to enforce just such doctrine as is advocated by Rev- 
erend Seelye ; than which nothing more atrocious could be 
devised. Rivers of blood have flowed because men loved truth 
and liberty better than life, and (because) the consciences of 
the ' subjects of the State ' did not approve. The ashes of 
'subjects' burned at the stake, because their consciences did 
not approve the edicts of the State, would fertilize the soil of a 
continent." 

Rev. Hillary Bygrave, of Toronto, says : "It is doubtful if 
the children of schools are made wiser, more useful, or even 
more moral, by being compelled to read the Bible. I plead 
for freedom of conscience and equal rights for all, Catholic, 
Protestant, Jew, Chinese, Agnostic and Atheist, alike." 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 185 

At a conference of Baptist pastors in the State of New York, 
held March, 1890, it was unanimously resolved : " We believe 
that it is a manifest injustice to tax those who do not believe 
in religion, for the maintenance of schools in which are 
taught religious principles which they do not wish their 
children to learn. . . . The State should teach only that 
on which all are agreed, and should not invade matters of con- 
science." 

The New York World thus expresses the true American 
idea on this question: "Ours is a purely secular State, in 
which men of all religions, and of no religion, are upon an 
exactly equal footing before the law. It has nothing what- 
ever to do with creeds or religion. The public schools are 
maintained by the secular State, for the secular education 
of children ; their religious education is a matter with which 
the State has no business to concern itself. That is a matter 
of parents and pastors. The State has no more right to 
teach a religion which is held by a majority of the people, than 
to teach one held by one of all its citizens." 

11 The American idea of the State is simple and consistent. 
. . . The State is absolutely secular, and must be so if we 
are to enforce the root principle of popular self-government, 
viz. : the absolute equality of all citizens before the law. 
Our population consists of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, 
Agnostics, Atheists, and men representing all other forms of 
thinking. All these are equally citizens ; all have an equal 
right and part in the government. We raise the school fund 
by taxing all these, and we have no more right to tax the Jew 
to support a Christian school, or the Methodists to support a 
Catholic school, or the Catholics to support a Presbyterian 
school, than to reverse all these processes, or to build churches 
at State expense, or to pay priests and clergy out of the public 
treasury, or to force a religion upon the people by statute." — 
(A T ew York Commercial Advertiser.') 

"Nothing is more apparent than that the existence of the 
schools depends upon the total exclusion of religion from them." 
— ( New York Sun. ) 



186 RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

President Elliot, of Harvard University, has expressed him- 
self in opposition to ''imposing religious opinions upon the 
susceptible mind," not only in State education, but in all our 
colleges and universities. ' ' 

President James C. Welling, of the Columbian University of 
Washington, D. C, argues that " public education should be 
confined to that modicum which may be necessary for the com- 
mon defense and general welfare," and in respect to which there 
is a consensus of opinion ; his conclusions being, "the State 
cannot rightfully teach the tenets of any particular religious 
creed, whether it be Jewish or Christian, Agnostic or Athe- 
istic. Public education, supported by public taxation, must 
needs be colorless in point of religion." 

General Grant wrote : ' ' No sectarian tenet should be taught 
in any school supported by State or National tax." 

The late Rev. Howard Crosby, d. d., has said : "There is 
no safety for our country, but in non-religious elementary 
education in the public schools. If the State is to teach religion, 
what religion is it to furnish ; the Roman Catholic, the Jewish, 
the Chinese, the Agnostic? Why not these? If the State 
must furnish religion, it must also logically furnish the inquisi- 
tion, and so the foundation of American independence 
must be destroyed. Is it not better that the Atheist should 7nake 
his children Atheists, than to break up the country and array 
men against each other?" 

Rev. Dr. Tiffany, who was a listener to the foregoing, gave 
it his unqualified approval. 

The Christian at Work says : " We cannot, as a people, 
too strongly insist that religion in the public schools shall not 
be taught, against the opposition of those who support the 
schools. . . . Reading a Protestant portion of the Bible 
is sectarian, as against the Douay or Roman Catholic version." 

Dr. J. G. Holland, in Scribners, February, 1876, speaking 
of the compulsory reading of the Bible in the public schools, 
says : " It is to the Catholic, Jew, and Atheists, a grievance, a 
hardship, an oppression." 

Rev. Dr. W. Sr Crowe, of Newark, says : "As a nation we 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 187 

are not Christian. We are nothing, theologically. The nation 
has no creeds. Your State, or your city, because the majority 
of the people happen to be Protestant, has therefore, no right 
to force Bible-reading into the public school, if there be one 
single Hebrew, one single Atheist, one single Catholic, 
who objects to it. If the parents of one single child objects, 
then your Bible-reading becomes a tyranny." 

Hon. A. S. Draper, late Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, says: "When any objection to the Bible in public 
schools is made, the only just course is to take it out." 

11 The Superintendents of Public Instruction, including Hon. 
John A. Dix, have, for fifty years, held that religious instruc- 
tion should form no part of the public school exercises." — 
( Truth - Seeker. ) 

The Albany Law Journal says : ' ' The State has no more 
right to permit the reading of the Bible in the public schools, 
than to permit the reading of the ' Westminster Catechism,' 
the 'Book of Common Prayer,' or the 'Talmud.' " 

The New York Independe?it, in quoting the above, says : 
" This is putting the matter in a plain, simple, and true light. 
The only just solution of the school question is to confine 
instruction in the public schools to purely secular education, 
and leave religious education to the family and the Church. 
Catholics, Protestants, and Infidels, should be able to agree to 
this course. It is all nonsense to say that the public school is 
'godless.' " 

Rev. Dr. S. H. Greer, of St. Bartholomew Church, New 
York City, has expressed himself as opposed to allowing 
the Bible to be read in the public schools, and added : " The 
charge that the schools of to-day are godless, is largely 
rhetorical." 

Rev. Dr. H. G. Jackson (Methodist) says : " It is not fair to 
require the Jews, or those of some other faith that are not 
Christians, to read the scriptures. ' The question arises — if 
you read the Bible in the public schools — what Bible? 
King James' is the Protestant Bible, and the Douay the 
Roman Catholic. . . . What we call morality can be 



l88 RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

taught without the use of the Bible. The State has nothing to 
do with religion." 

Rev. Robert S. MacArthur (Baptist) says : ''Should Ro- 
manism ever become dominant in this land, Protestants 
would make a great outcry if the Romish version of the 
Bible was forced upon the children in the schools. We can 
never properly antagonize them until we become entirely 
willing to omit all forms of distinctively religious teaching in 
the public schools. Further, we have no right to subject 
Atheists to taxation for the support of schools in which Chris- 
tianity is taught. The teaching of religion belongs to the 
family and to the church." 

Rev. Charles H. Eaton (pastor of the Church of the Divine 
Paternity, New York City), says : "We would remove from 
the public schools the Bible), and take away all religious 
exercises, and make the public schools what they were in- 
tended to be — the foundation and beginning of knowledge, 
which shall be the best protection of the American Republic." 

" The reading of the Bible in the public schools is a good 
deal of a 'performance,' and is conspicuous for nothing so 
much as for its farcical features. It is more a ' fetich ' than a 
moral agency." — (Rev. Dr. Parkhurst.) 

"Protestants are wrong in claiming a right to have the 
Bible read as a religious book. This branch of education 
should be relegated, where it belongs,, to the family and the 
church." — Rev. Dr. Shipman, Christ Church, New York 
City.) 

" I object to the Bible being read in the public schools : 

" i. Because there is no common agreement as to what 
constitutes the Bible. 

11 2. Because there is no common agreement as to what 
parts are historical, and what parts are allegorical. 

" 3. Because there is no common agreement as to what 
doctrines are taught in the Bible. 

" 4. Because it contains so much that is cruel and obscene. 

" 5. Because the moral is so mixed up with the immoral, 
that there is great danger of contamination by contact. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 1 89 

1 ' 6. Because of its defective morality. " — (Judge Richard B. 
Westbrook, of Philadelphia.) 

That true patriotic and fearless son of the ' ' Mother Church, ' ' 
Rev. Dr. McGlynn, thus expresses himself on this question : 
"We do not wish to unite secular and religious education. 
Our public schools are the pride and glory of Americans, and 
should be made institutions where Christians and Infidels, 
Jews and Gentiles, may alike send their children to be edu- 
cated, without any fear that they would be subjected to any 
religious or sectarian bias. An Infidel, Jew, or Mohammedan, 
has the same right in our government, that you or I have, and 
the right of all should be respected. The business of public 
instruction should be in the hands of secular, and not entrusted 
to religious orders. ... Is there any reason why there 
should be, in the common schools, anything to offend Hebrews 
Catholics, Agnostics, or Atheists? Protestants are setting a 
bad example, for the time may come when Hebrews or 
Catholics may be in the majority, and then they will make the 
schools Hebrew or Catholic." 

The question of the Bible in the public schools is not a 
religious one, but one of principle. Most of the utterances 
quoted above — as opposing any religious teaching or inculca- 
tion — are from clergymen and other professors of religion. 

Why is it that the Romanists (or many of them) are clamor- 
ing for a portion of the school fund, with which to endow their 
parochial schools? Because they claim that the Protestants 
(being in the majority) have persisted in reading the Protestant 
Bible, and thereby inculcating the Protestant religion in the 
public schools ; consequently they claim (and justly, too), 
that, as the State funds are thus appropriated to the inculca- 
tion or teaching of the Protestant religion, they (the Ro- 
manists) are equally entided to a portion of the State funds 
for the support of schools where the Douay Bible is read, and, 
thereby, the Catholic religion is taught. 

This subject has agitated the country for a half century or 
more. It has ever been a " bone of contention " — especially 
in this State — from the time Mr. Seward was governor. He 



I90 RELIGION AND EDUCATION. 

had the courage of his convictions in sustaining the position of 
Archbishop Hughes, who insisted that the Bible should be 
taken from the public schools. Governor Seward was de- 
nounced at that time by nearly all — if not quite all — of the 
Protestant clergy. He simply contended for the principle that 
no semblance of religious teaching should be permitted in the 
public schools, and that, consequently, the reading of the Pro- 
testant Bible was an improper and unjust act. 

If the Romanists are successful in obtaining public funds for 
the parochial schools, the Protestant Church is responsible for 
it. If our (admirable) school system is destroyed, if the prin- 
ciple of secular education is abandoned, if these nurseries of 
citizenship are broken up, the Protestant Church must be held 
answerable for the calamity which will surely ensue. The 
same unprofitable contention (with regard to Bible-reading) 
has been going on for fifty years in the London school board. 

As indicating the determination and bitterness of Romanists, 
with regard to the reading of the Bible in the public schools, 
a quotation from the New York Catholic News may be given, 
viz.: "The only claim Protestantism has on the country, is 
that it intruded itself here after the continent had been dis- 
covered by Catholics, and immediately began by persecuting 
them. An American Protestant has the same right as an 
American Mohammedan or Hebrew — but no more. And 
when he undertakes to impose his King James' (Lion and 
Unicorn) English Bible, he will find that American Catholics 
will not tolerate his intolerance. The Protestant Bible, in the 
public schools, for the support of which Catholics pay taxes, 
must go. ' ' 

Some progress has been made towards ridding communities 
of the annoyances arising from the agitation of this vexed 
question. Religious exercises, of any description, have been 
forbidden in the common schools of the cities of Troy, 
Rochester, Cincinnati, and Chicago, and great efforts are being 
made in the same direction in other places." 

In most States, the question of Bible-reading is left to the 
direction of the school commissioners, or to the teachers, but 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. I9I 

we are happy to say that the constitution of one State, at least, 
viz. : Washington, forbids the reading of the Bible entirely 
within the schools under the jurisdiction of the State. 

The following utterance of a judge of the Supreme Court of 
Wisconsin, before which came the question of the Bible in the 
public schools, indicates the rancor which this question engen- 
ders : "There is no such cause and source of strife, quarrel, 
fight, malignant opposition, persecution and war, as religion. 

Let it once enter into our common schools, they would be 
destroyed ; let it once enter into our civil affairs, our govern- 
ment would be destroyed." 

Appropriation of money for schools, in which the reading of 
the Bible is insisted upon, is in direct violation of the following 
provision of law : " No school shall be entitled to receive any 
portion of the school money, in which the religious doctrines 
or tenets of any Christian or other religious sect shall be taught, 
inculcated or practiced. ' ' 

In conclusion, in view of the wrongful position assumed by 
those who persist in Bible-reading, or other religious instruc- 
tion, in our public schools, the following questions would seem 
to be proper and pertinent, viz. : When will Christians (as a 
body) act upon principle ? When will they be just? When will 
they do to others as they would that others should do to them ? 
When will they render to Caesar the things that are Caesars ? 
When will they recognize the rights of minorities? When 
will they respect the consciences of those who differ from them 
in opinion? When will they cease assuming superiority in 
wisdom, in knowledge, in morality, in uprightness? When 
will they be humble-minded, simple-hearted, kindly-disposed, 
forbearing, tolerant, to those who may not happen to think as 
they do ? In fine, when will Christians become Christ-like ? 



MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 

" He who dares not reason is a slave." — Milton. 

" He is most enslaved who is so in his understanding." — Locke. 

IN a walk with my intimate friend, the late General Joseph 
Karge, Professor of Continental Languages in Princeton 
College, after expressing my doubts with regard to the author- 
ity and truthfulness of the Bible and my disbelief in the miracles 
therein narrated, he turned to me and said : 

' ' Why, you are emancipated. ' ' 

This was many years ago, but the expression lingers on my 
memory as scarcely any other saying of anyone does. It ex- 
presses the true condition of mind of a person who has the 
courage to express his honest convictions ; who dares to exer- 
cise his reasoning faculties ; who has thrown off the shackles 
of dogmatism ; who has brushed away the cobwebs of super- 
stition and who welcomes the light of truth which the revela- 
tions of science has caused to shine upon and to dissipate the 
pretended revelations of a so-called sacred book. 

Emancipated ! That is the word which is properly applied 
to the independent thinkers, to the investigators for truth, to 
those who, like Copernicus and Newton and Darwin, study the 
laws of Nature rather than give credence to the supposed vio- 
lations of those laws, which an unreasoning theology teaches. 

Slavery in our southern states was thought by some to be a 
divine institution and a blessing to the enslaved, and so 
there are those who think that the church is another ' ' divine 
institution," and that the slavery of the mind is a blessing 
to those who are without inclination to inquire into the 
truth or falsehood of the theology which holds the relation 
of slave-master to the mentally enslaved. 

As Buckle has said ' ' the injury which the theological 

_; (192) 



MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 193 

principle has done to the world is immense. It has pre- 
vented men from studying the laws of nature." 

How many intelligent minds (to say nothing of the more 
ignorant) are there which are in mental servitude to the 
superstitious fears which are generated by the horrible doc- 
trines of orthodox Christianity ? Rev. R. Heber Newton 
says: "Men in ever increasing numbers are exiling them- 
selves from the homes of their fathers because the priesthood 
of Rome and of Protestantism allow no freedom of thought 
and speech in the ancestral mansions, but only the slavery 
of superstition or the silence of cowardice. ' ' 

John Morley has expressed this servitude to religious fear, 
thus : " Those who dwell in the tower of ancient faiths look 
about them in one constant apprehension, misgiving and 
wonder ; with the hurried, uneasy mien of people living 
among earthquakes." 

It is this superstitious fear which enslaves the intellect and 
prevents the exercise of its legitimate functions. It is this 
which has retarded the advance of learning, and conse- 
quently encouraged ignorance ; which has treated the investi- 
gations of science as though they were criminal acts ; which 
has hindered the march of civilization, and which has checked 
the progress of what the Christian church sneeringly calls 
" mere morality." 

The despotic power of Christianity, from the time that it 
became ascendant in the fourth century, held Grecian phi- 
losophy in vassalage, until in the sixth century, by Impe- 
rial Mandate, was closed the last of the schools of Greek 
philosophy. 

The Chur.ch has been (and is to-day) a brake on the wheels 
of progress, an incubus on civilization, the preservator of 
antique ignorance, the store-house of foolish superstitions." 
Rev. John W. Chadwick says : " It is horrible to think how 
the path of science has been blocked, at every turn, by anti- 
quated texts and from what possible advances we have been 
deterred by the dogma of Biblical infallibility, wedged into 
every avenue of scientific observation and experiments." 



194 MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 

This superstitious fear has incited to intense bitterness, 
animosity and hatred ; induced the practice of the most 
barbaric cruelty and occasioned the fiercest and bloodiest of 
wars. And all these horrors in the name of a religion pro- 
fessedly of "peace and good will to man." What incon- 
sistency ! 

Since Christianity allied itself to the State under the in- 
human monster, Constantine (whom Christians seem to delight 
to honor by calling "the Great ") there has been more per- 
secution, torture and slaughter of human beings than ever 
existed for all the ages prior to that most unfortunate 
period. 

Christianity is the most inconsistent of all religions ; for 
while it professes to be controlled by a broad and catholic love 
towards the whole human race, in its practice it is narrow- 
minded, exclusive, intolerant and revengeful. But while this 
is true of Christianity in general, embracing both Romanism 
and Protestantism, the latter is even more inconsistent than the 
former. Martin Luther was supposed to have struck a sturdy 
blow for intellectual freedom when he enunciated the right of 
private judgment. Upon this right was the Protestant Church 
founded, but which right is quite as much denied to-day in 
the Protestant as it is in the Romish Church. This fact is well 
expressed by N. A. Nolin (a Roman Catholic) in a recent 
number of the N. A. Review. In speaking of the conviction 
of Dr. Briggs for heresy by the Presbyterian General As- 
sembly, he says : "We have before us a minister of the 
Gospel, belonging to a Church, which holds as one of its 
essential tenets that all its members — shepherd and flock — 
are vested with the unlimited right to interpret the Bible in 
the manner which to them seems good and proper. On a 
certain day in which he set forth his own interpretation of 
the divine word, he is dragged from one tribunal to another, 
eventually condemned and suspended as guilty of heresy ! Dr. 
Briggs may well wonder at the course followed by his self- 
appointed judges and exclaim, ' Consistency, thou art a 
jewel!' " 



MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 195 

In both churches we find the same slavery to ecclesiastical 
despotism, the same restraint of mental liberty. 

This denial of the right of private judgment is not only anti- 
Protestant, but it is anti-Christian. It is opposed to the teach- 
ings of Paul, who tells us to "prove all things ; " certainly it is 
not in accord with the precept of the founder of Christianity, 
when he says: "Why judge ye not of yourselves what is 
right?" 

The Protestant Church pretends (notwithstanding evidence 
to the contrary) to grant this right of private judgment to its 
adherents ; but it is always with restriction, exception or 
proviso. 

Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D., Senior Rector of Trinity Church, 
N. Y. City, while claiming such right for the Protestant Church, 
says : "When Christ came into the world, the private judg- 
ment of man had no right to discuss, no power to settle, questions, 
such as the priestly office, the promises, the commands." 

Even the Romish Church claims to grant the right of private 
judgment to those of its communion. 

Rev. J. A. Zahn (R. C.) writes ten pages in the JV. A. Re- 
view of Sept., '93, to prove that "Christian faith and scien- 
tific freedom" are reconcilable. He boldly asserts that " the 
Church has always permitted the greatest liberty of thought 
and freedom of discussion regarding questions of philosophy 
and science" (but the modifying words) " that have ?io direct 
bearing on dogma" (are added.) Again he speaks of "the 
liberty of thought which the Church has always permitted 
her children in matters not connected with faith ." He quotes 
from an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII as being supposed to 
show the freedom of thought permitted by this "illustrious 
pontiff" as follows: "In those points of doctrine which the 
human intelligence is able to apprehend by its natural powers 
it is right that philosophy should be left to its own methods 
and principles and arguments " (but " his Holiness " is careful 
to add) "provided, however, that it does not audaciously with- 
draw itself from divine authority ." In another encyclical, on 
Human Liberty > the head of the Church says : " It is not to 



I96 MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 

be forgotten that there is an immense field for the free exercise 
of the activity and of the mind of men in those things which 
have no relation to the teachings of faith." 

There is no such thing as mental freedom where the Chris- 
tian Church holds sway. What were the ' ' dark ages ' ' but 
the elimination of the light of knowledge in order that the 
consequent intellectual darkness might give opportunity to the 
Church to more securely enslave the thoughts of the peo- 
ple? Prof. Draper says: "In 1,200 years, when Christianity 
dominated the civilized world, the Church had not made a 
single discovery that advanced the cause of humanity or ameli- 
orated the condition of mankind." 

Hallam says : "A cloud of ignorance overspread the whole 
face of the Church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, 
which owe much of their distinction to the surrounding dark- 
ness. . . . For many centuries it was rare for a layman, 
of whatever rank, to know how to sign his name. ... In 
almost every council the ignorance of the clergy forms a sub- 
ject for reproach." 

Buckle says that ' ' for eight centuries there were not in all 
Christian TLuropefour men who dared to express an independ- 
ent opinion. ' ' 

Macaulay says : ' ' The Church of England for a hundred 
and fifty years was the steady enemy of public liberty." 

Guizot says : ' ' When any step was taken to establish a sys- 
tem of permanent institutions which might effectually protect 
liberty from the invasions of power in general, the Church 
always ranged herself on the side of despotism." 

Prof. Oswald says : ' \ The history of Christian dogmatism is 
the history of over 1,800 years of war against nature and 
truth." 

Hon. Andrew D. White, late president of Cornell Uni- 
versity, in his Warfare of Science has shown how the Christian 
Church (Protestant as well as Roman Catholic) has done all 
that it could to stay the spread of learning and with what re- 
lentless hate it attempted the destruction of every investigator 
in the path of science. 



MENTAL EMANCIPATION. I97 

The dogma of Biblical infallibility has been the most uncom- 
promising of slave-masters. Those which this dogma held in 
servitude to its absurd claims did not dare to make known 
discoveries of the highest importance and usefulness, in fear of 
the dungeon, the rack or the stake. Consequently these 
discoveries were postponed and their benefits lost for centuries. 

Medicine, surgery, anaesthetics, agriculture, the fanning- 
mill, the census, life insurance, the art of printing, gravitation, 
the rotundity of the earth, the heliocentric system, geography, 
the use of steam and electricity, have all been interdicted by 
the church. 

Astronomy, geology, biology, palaeontology, evolution, all 
have incurred the most bitter and persistent opposition of the 
church, and even to-day she contests every inch of ground 
upon which the investigators of science would advance. 

The dogmas of the church have proved and are proving the 
most despotic and despicable of tyrants, and those it succeeds 
in enslaving are the most unreasoning, fear-stricken and debased 
of creatures. 

The Church not only holds in bondage the dupes of its 
dogmas, but it exercises a tyranny of opinion over those who 
reject its creeds, but who dare not oppose its imperious sway. 
This accounts for so much legislation in the interest of Chris- 
tianity. The exemption of church property from taxation, the 
donating of money for religious purposes, the payments from 
the government treasury for the maintenance of chaplains in 
the army, navy and public institutions, the introduction 01 
religion in our public schools are all accomplished through fear 
of opposition to ecclesiastical domination. 

Max Nordau says : ' ' The greatest evil of our times is the 
prevailing cowardice. We do not dare to assert our opinion 
to bring our outward lives into harmony with our inward con- 
victions ; we believe it to be worldly policy to cling outwardly 
to relics of former ages, when at heart we are completely 
severed from them." 

Our Sunday laws are enacted at the dictation of Christian 
zealots, who are the abject slaves of a superstitious reverence 



I98 MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 

for a day, the observance of which is without the slightest 
authority — even from the Christian standpoint — a day which 
Luther and other reformers declared to be no more sacred than 
any other, and the observance of which Bishop Potter and 
others of the clergy have said is utterly without warrant. 

These tyrannical laws are enacted in violation of that princi- 
ple of justice which gives equal rights to all ; are in contra- 
vention of the grand American idea of separation of church 
and state, and are in decided conflict with both the spirit and 
letter of constitutional law. 

Think of it, that in this enlightened age and in a country, 
the proudest boast in which is that the liberty of not even 
the meanest citizen shall be abridged ; at the dictation of 
these autocratic Christian fanatics, honorable persons are 
forbidden to pursue their legitimate occupations and that 
many estimable people are fined and lodged in jail. Here 
are not only willing Christian slaves, but those who protest 
against this outrage, are held twilling captives. 

If there ever were laws which called for a William Lloyd 
Garrison to inaugurate a movement toward abolition, the 
arbitrary laws compelling the religious observance of Sunday 
are such. 

Must we continue to submit to this wrong, as we did to 
slavery at the south, until "emancipation" is accomplished 
only by the clash of arms and the sacrifice of treasure and 
of life ? 

Atrocious as is physical slavery, mental slavery is even more 
atrocious. 

Do all the evils of physical slavery combined, in all ages of 
the world, compare with the enslavement of the mind by the 
church, which caused Christian fanatics for three centuries, 
in nine distinct crusades, to war upon unoffending people, 
entailing indescribable misery and the sacrifice of twe?ity millions 
of human lives? 

Does the history of physical slavery record a more degrading 
spectacle than the-subjugation of the reasoning faculties which 
was experienced in the instance of Henry IV of Germany, 



MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 199 

crossing the Alps in mid-winter, standing before the castle of 
Canossa, barefooted and in sack-cloth, for three days and 
three nights, exposed to most inclement weather, in order to 
crave forgiveness from Gregory VII, whose mastery over 
the mind of the potentate was thus shown to be absolute? 

Can physical slavery show results more saddening, more 
sickening, more immoral, more brutal, than "the despotic re- 
solve of the church to rule the minds and consciences of men 
through its Popes and priesthood " and which resulted in the 
"Thirty Years' War," with its "eight millions slain and 
twelve millions surviving to meet horrors worse than death ? " 

Physical slavery has never displayed a tithe of the inhuman- 
ity which has been shown in the mental slavery with which a 
despotic, intolerant and cruel church has held those who did 
its bidding in its relentless warfare upon those martyrs for 
opinion's sake who fed the flames of Seville, Smithfield, 
Geneva and Salem. 

It has been said that " thought is the mightiest thing in the 
universe." It has indeed a potency before which morality, 
philosophy, sociology, economics, politics and all national 
forces are compelled to succumb. It leads in every reform. 
It is the herald of all progress. It is the pioneer which clears 
the forests of superstition, of tradition, of legend and of fable, 
and plants in their stead the seeds of truth. It is the advance 
guard in its contest with ignorance. And this mighty agent, 
this great boon to man, ecclesiasticism seeks to enslave and to 
silence ! 

There can be no more important work than that of educating 
people to be freethinkers ; to strike for and maintain that free- 
dom of opinion which the Christian Church has ever denied. 
Let the proclamation of intellectual emancipation resound 
throughout the world and coming generations will call 
" blessed " the Freethinkers* Magazine and all other agencies 
which have striven to give " liberty to the captive " mind. 

But, let him whose auroral flashes of thought irradiate the 
intellectual sky ; whose genius has given beauty to words, as 
nature gives beauty to the flowers ; of whom it can be said — 



200 . MENTAL EMANCIPATION. 

as Dryden said of Shakespeare — ' ' He was the man who had the 
largest and most comprehensive soul ; to whom all the images of 
nature were present ; " him, who is the grandest of all the lovers 
of liberty of any age ; not only of liberty for the body, but 
(transcending this) liberty for the mind ; the story of whose 
vigorous and uncompromising conflict with theological tyranny 
will live so long as history records noble and self-sacrificing 
acts, and to whose imperishable name paeons of gratitude, by 
the mentally emancipated, in the ages to come, will be sung — 
the matchless Ingersoll ; let him give a suitable and brilliant 
ending to the thoughts which the topic here selected has sug- 
gested, by the citation of his sublime Apostrophe to Liberty : 

" Oh, Liberty, thou art the god of my idolatry ! Thou art 
the only Deity that hates the bended knee. In thy vast and 
unwalled temple — beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed 
and luminous with suns — thy worshippers stand erect ! Tney 
do not cringe or crawl or bend their foreheads to the earth. 
The dust has never borne the impress of their lips. Upon thy 
altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their 
rights. Thou askest naught from man except the things that 
good men hate — the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. 

"Thou hast no popes, no priests, who stand between their 
fellow-men and thee. Thou carest not for slavish forms, or 
selfish prayers. Thou hast no monks, no nuns, who, in the 
name of duty, murder joy. At thy sacred shrine Hypocrisy 
does not bow, Fear does not crouch, Virtue does not tremble, 
Superstition's feeble tapers do not burn ; but Reason holds 
aloft her inextinguishable torch, while on the ever-broadening 
brow of Science falls the ever-coming morning of the ever- 
better day." 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

THE doctrine of punishment in a future state, to which the 
theology of Christianity has consigned — not those who 
have been guilty of immoral acts — but those who have dared 
to question that theology, or who have been disrespectful 
enough to Christianity to doubt its authority, is the most un- 
founded, the most repulsive, and (it may perhaps be added) 
the most unbelievable, or unbelieved, of all the absurd doc- 
trines with which the Christian church has attempted to fetter 
the brains of its disciples. Of all the teachings of the Christian 
religion, this is the most preposterous and monstrous. It has 
no basis in common sense ; for the punishment to be inflicted 
is not by reason of the commission of any crime, but only and 
simply because of the exercise of the reasoning faculties. This 
doctrine is the outgrowth of that superstitious fear, which has 
always existed among the ignorant and credulous and though a 
belief in it is professed by many intelligent persons, such belief 
{or profession of belief) is undoubtedly in consequence of the 
absence of intelligent thought on the subject. There are in- 
dications that the church itself is becoming ashamed of this 
doctrine, for there are comparatively few who now acknowl- 
edge belief in it. What is known as the "higher criticism" 
has exposed its presumptuous claims and it is hoped that the 
day is not far distant when this most horrible of all the com- 
ponent parts of an unreasoning theology will be among the 
things that were. 

The efforts of late made to substitute for the harsh, Saxon, 
word "Hell," the more mild, Hebrew, word Sheo/, or the 
more mystic, Greek word, Hades, is another indication of a 
desire to soften the asperity of what so grates on the ear of 
benevolence. 

(20I) 



202 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

A certain belief in hell comes to us from away back of the 
Christian era. It is peculiar to most religions, and Christianity 
borrowed it, as she did almost every dogma of ancient times 
that could instill fear and submission to authority into the 
minds of her subjects. No religion, however, presents any 
picture of the horrors of the damned, at all comparable to that 
portrayed by the Christian religion. 

Rev. Charles A. Allen, says : " It is significant that Chris- 
tianity alone has taught the horrors of an everlasting gulf 
between heaven and hell." 

Listen to a few " Orthodox " views on this subject : 

" Husbands shall see their wives, parents their children, tor- 
mented before their eyes ; the bodies of the damned shall be 
crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine press, which 
press one another till they burst ; every distinct sense and 
organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most ex- 
quisite sufferings. " — Jeremy Taylor. (And yet Bishop Taylor 
was regarded as one of the most liberal and enlightened of the 
clergy of the Seventeenth century.) 

"There sighs, complaints and ululations loud 
Resounded thro' the air without a star, 
Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat. 
Language diverse — horrible dialects ; 
Accents of anger — words of agony, 
And voices high and harsh, with sound of hands ; 
Made up a tumult that goes whirling on 
Forever — in that air forever black." — Dante. 

" Forever harassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel 
themselves torn asunder by an angry God and transfixed and 
penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of 
God and broken by the weight of His hand, so that to sink 
into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a 
moment in these terrors. Even infants bring their damnation 
with them/' — John Calvin. 

"In that lake, it is wonderful to think how wicked, damned, 
fools, shall be tormented. . . . The shame that shall cover 
their faces shall be perpetual ; the fire that shall devour them 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 203 

is eternal ; the horrors that shall astonish them are everlast- 
ing ; the worm that gnavveth upon their conscience never 
dies ; the pains which they shall feel shall never have an 
end." — George Webbe. 

"A dark 
Illimitable ocean, without bound, 

Without dimension, where length, breadth and height 
And time and place are lost, where eldest Night 
And chaos, ancestors of nature, hold 
Eternal anarchy."— John Milton. 

" The rotation of the earth is caused by lost souls trying to 
escape from the fire in the center of the earth — which is the 
wall of hell — thus making the whole revolve, as the squirrel, 
by climbing, turns its cage." — Father Hardonin. 

"Any human idea of hell is heaven compared with what is 
really hell." — St. Boneve?itura. 

" The redeemed in heaven will have no compassion for the 
damned in hell, tho' they see their tortures." — St. Thomas 
Aqui?ias. 

' ' The woes of sinners in hell will not be a cause of grief to 
saints in heaven, but of rejoicing ; will be the fruit of perfect 
holiness and conformity to Christ. . . . After your godly 
parents shall have seen you lie in hell millions of years or ages, 
in torment, day and night, they will not begin to pity you then. 
They will praise God that his justice appears in the eternity of 
your misery. The torments of hell will be immeasurably 
greater than being in a glowing oven, a brick kiln or fiery 
furnace." — Jojiathan Edwards. 

"With iron bands, they bind their hands 
And cursed feet together, 
And cast them all, both great and small, 
Into that lake forever : 
Where day and night, without respite, 
They wail and cry and howl, 
For torturing pain which they sustain 
In body and in soul." — Michael Wigglesworth. 



204 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

" Burning continually, yet unconsumed." — Pollock. 

"Eternal plagues and heavy chains, 
Tormenting rocks and fiery coals 
And darts to inflict immortal pains, 
Dyed in the blood of damned souls." — Dr. Watts. 

"Infants sustain precisely the same relation to the Divine 
law and justice as adults." — Rev. H. Shedd. 

"Thank God the day is not far distant when you will be 
chained down to Hell's brazen floor, and the devil, with his 
three-pronged harpoon, will pierce your reeking heart and 
pile the red hot cinders of black damnation upon you as high 
as the Pyramids of Egypt, and fry out the pride of your heart 
to grease the gudgeons of hell." — Rev. Samuel Cawso?i, of 
Clarksburg, Va. 

"I see him (the rebellious soul) dashing down the vast abyss, 
striking from projecting crag to crag, until he lands upon that 
seething lake of fire and bounding from wave to wave, 
wrestling, struggling, groaning, forever and forever." — Rev. 
Dr. N. C. McCoy. 

(See N. O. Picayune, July 18, 1888.) 

"At the judgment day, thy body will join thy soul and thou 
wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood and thy 
body suffused with agony. Thy body will lie asbestos-like, for- 
ever unconsumed ; all thy veins roads for the feet of pains to 
travel on ; every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever 
play his diabolical tune of Hell's unutterable lament." — C. H. 
Spur g eon. 

*' What is the use of explaining away a furnace of fire, when 
God says there is one. . . . Jesus Christ descended into 
Hell. He walked down the fiery steps. He stepped off the bot- 
tom rung of the long ladder of despair. He put his bare foot 
on the hottest coal of the fiercest furnace." — Rev. T. Dc Witt 
Talmage. 

tl The punishment of sin in the world to come, is grievous 
torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell fire, 
forever. ' ' — Westminster Catechism. 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 205 

Rev. S. Henderson Smythe, ofN. Y. City, says: "If there 
is no Hell, then are we the miserable dupes of a Deity who is 
worse than the Devil of the Bible." 

The doctrine of Hell is intensified by the estimate which 
the clergy have made of the proportion of human beings who 
are consigned thereto. 

Jonathan Edwards thought " that the bigger part of men that 
have died are gone to hell." A Presbyterian clergyman at 
the general assembly in 1891, computed that thirty souls went 
to hell every minute. Chrisostom doubted if ioo out of every 
100,000 would be saved. A professor ot history in Oxford, in 
the 17th century estimated that not one in a hundred thousand, 
and probably not one in a million escaped hell. Two cen- 
turies ago, an English preacher urged that one person saved 
out of every million would be a liberal calculation. 

While this absurd and almost unthinkable doctrine of hell is 
professed by all Orthodox Christians, to the credit of their 
human nature, though at the expense of their honesty, it must 
be admitted that but few of them actually believe it, and 
their numbers are decreasing daily, while the great body of 
rational beings and independent thinkers have utterly re- 
pudiated it. 

The poet Whittier says: "I recognize the importance of 
the revolt from the awful dogma of predestined happiness for 
the few and damnation for the many. Slowly but surely the 
dreadful burden of this old belief is being lifted from the heart 
of humanity." 

The Christian Leader says : 4 ' Sooner or later the revolt of 
the public mind and heart from the dreadful dogma of eternal 
damnation will be complete." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, says : ''The doctrine 
of an eternal, fiery hell, has not one minister in the Evangelical 
Church to do it reverence now, where, fifty years ago, it had 
a hundred." 

Rev. J. M. Capes (Church of England) says: "In the 
stories about Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva and Apollo, there 
is nothing so frightful as the notion that the eternal God has 



206 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

doomed little children to hell fire, because Adam was seduced 
by a silly woman to eat a fruit which a serpent told him was 
delicious." 

Rev. Dr. Rylance, of St. Mark's Church, New York city, 
says : " Very few men can be found to-day who accept the 
notion of an absolute predestination of the few to everlast- 
ing life and the vast majority to the horrors of an everlasting 
hell. , ' 

Rev. Howard McQueary says : ' ' The doctrine of an endless 
hell is disappearing from theology." 

Rev. W. S. Rainsford, D. D., of St. George's Church, 
New York City, says : ' ' The doctrine of endless punishment 
is damnable." 

Rev. S. Miller Hegema?i } late of Princeton, New Jersey, 
says : "A God of Hell must be a God of Hate. ' ' 

"The odious ruthfulness of Calvinism, which turns God 
into Moloch and man into human fuel for endless flames, pro- 
claimed itself as the only logical inference from Scripture 
texts. ' ' — Archdeacon Farrar. 

The New York Tribune says : ' 'Archdeacon Farrar' s formal 
declaration, in the recent English Church conference, that the 
old dogma of eternal punishment is dead, beyond resurrection, 
would have precipitated a savage and relentless controversy in 
the church, twenty-five years ago. To-day it hardly excites 
notice." 

Rev. Leighton Parks, of Emanuel Church, Boston, says : 
" No man can be found who believes to-day the dogma that 
every soul that has not heard the Gospel should be damned." 

"Let's circumscribe be some slight restriction 
The eternity of hell's hot jurisdiction." — Byron. 

"The dogma of eternal punishment is not 'good tidings of 
great joy ' — but bad tidings of great woe." — Gail Hamilton. 

"His talk of hell where devils dwell 
Our vera souls does harrow." — Burns. 

Rev. Edward Everett Hale, speaks of the ' ' horrible dogma 
about hell. 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 207 

Dr. Parker, of London, says : "A theology teaching that men 
may be condemned for not believing what they never heard 
should be branded and excommunicated." 

Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, of New York City, said in the New 
York City Presbytery, January 23, 1890 : " The damn side of 
holiness has been just a little overworked." 

" No such doctrine as that of eternal damnation ought to 
be admitted that carries in it an idea of cruelty beyond what 
the blackest tyrants have ever invented." — Bishop Burnett. 

The late Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D., said: "No 
Andersonville prison, with its Wurtges and Winders, sum- 
moning the world to curse its systematic cruelties, deserves 
one iota of the loathing and hatred with which the united race 
should repel the idea of a predestined ruin — in a flaming pit 
— for endless ages." 

Even Rev. A. H. Hewit in the Catholic World says : "The 
doctrine that mankind is lost ... is utterly false and 
absurd." 

At the New York City Presbytery, January 29, 1890, Elder 
Charles H. Woodbury, of the Madison Avenue Church, had 
the courage to say, ' ' I never will worship a being who creates 
men merely to damn them." 

And he who has done most to rid the world of this " crown- 
ing horror of dogmatic theology" — this "mother dogma of 
the whole brood of evangelical ideas" — the true-hearted, 
courageous and eloquent Ingersoll, speaks of the doctrine of 
eternal punishment as the " fanged and frightful dogma that 
souls were made to feed the eternal hunger of a God's 
revenge" — and adds "this dogma is the disgrace and deg- 
radation of the Christian world. ... It has furrowed 
the cheeks of the good and tender with tears. It is the most 
ignorant, the most infamous, the most absurd idea that ever 
found lodging in the brain of man." 

But even admitting the possibility of the truth of the doc- 
trine of this " eternal horror," the present and future in- 
habitants of hell may be comforted by the encouraging words 
to be found in the utterances of the scholarly Roman Catholic, 



208 FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

Professor St. George Mivart, who says, " There is no dogma 
more repellant to the modern mind than that of the eternity of 
hell and few things could be more justly repellant than the 
way in which that dogma has been proclaimed and defended 
by certain theologians, In what a different light, however, 
will that doctrine appear if hell is regarded as the asylum, of 
natural beatitude, provided by supreme mercy and love. . . . 
Hell in its widest sense . . . must be considered as . . . 
an abode of happiness, transcending all our most vivid anticipa- 
tions ; so that 7?ian's natural capacity for happiness is there 
gratified to the utmost. ' ' 

Professor Mivart has also gone so far as to say that, owing to 
the spirit which the dwellers in hell, being in harmony with the 
nature of most people, there is more happiness for the majority 
there, than in heaven. 

Take courage then ; none need to quake 
With fear of what the future be. 
Hell may not be a burning lake, 
But where exists felicity. 

Many of the "fathers of the church" confirm the opinions 
expressed by Mivart. 

St. Augustine has distinctly affirmed that "the damned 
prefer their existence, as damned souls, to non-existence." 

Shakespeare also bears similar testimony : "A man may 
live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary ; and people sin upon 
purpose because they would go thither.'" — Much Ado ii : i. 

The doctrines of a future state as it conforms to orthodox 
opinion is not as ancient as is generally supposed. 

J. T. Sutherland, in " What is the Bible," says it is absent 
from those parts of the Bible written before the captivity. 
Dean Stanley says, " The doctrine of the immortality of the 
soul does not appear in the first half of the Old Testament." 

Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke says, "It is a curious and 
very noticeable fact that the religion of Moses teaches no such 
doctrine as future retribution. It appears nowhere in the Old 
Testament. Reward and punishment in this world not in the 
next, is the doctrine of the Old Testament." Dr. Clarke also 



FUTURE PUNISHMENT, 209 

alludes to the moral, or rather im-moral, side of the doctrine 
of hell and shows how much more elevating is the absence of 
such doctrine. He says, " The moral influence of the teach- 
ing of Moses and the prophets is that they show the grandeur 
and nobleness of goodness ; they rouse the higher nature in 
man ; they purify and elevate all the moral sensibilities." 

Canon Farrar says that " It is a monstrous delusion to sup- 
pose that the fear of hell is a deterrent from sin." 

James E. Stone, who murdered six persons of one (the 
Wratten) family in JefTersonville, Indiana, September 18th, 
1893, was not deterred from his diabolical act by his belief in 
the doctrine of hell ; but listen to the consequences of a belief 
in the doctrine, not of punishment for wro?ig-doi?ig but of 
reward for right-thinking, that is for thinking or believing, (or 
pretending to believe) as the Church directs. This wholesale 
murderer (but redeemed Christian) "maintained to the last 
that the angels in heaven awaited his coming ; that his crimson- 
stained hands had been washed in the blood of the lamb : 
that he had made his peace with God and man and awaited 
with fortitude his execution." 

Rev. Charles Tinsley and Rev, H. W. McKane, of JefTerson- 
ville, furnished this murderous saint with his passports to glory. 

Another murderer, whose victim was his wife, ' ' experienced 
religion" shortly before his execution and in the full assurance 
of his spiritual advisers that his sins were all forgiven him, 
he having expressed belief in the doctrine of the Christian 
church, was eager to enter the realms of bliss, which his 
"faith" had made him certain was his reward. He ex- 
pressed one regret, however, but only one, and that was that 
his wife could never join him in the blissful abode to which his 
piety had assigned him, for the reason that she had died before 
the opportunity had been presented to her of joining the Christian 
church. 

How consoling to murderers and other criminals are the 
Christian doctrines, of belief by faith, of eleventh hour re- 
pentance, of the never-ending consequences of the talismanic 
words " I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." 



2IO FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

Can there be any doctrine more inconsistent with common 
sense, more illogical, more immoral and (if there be such a 
thing as blasphemy) more blasphemous than that which teaches 
reliance for reward, in the (supposed) world to come solely on 
belief in the text, ' ' he that believeth shall be saved, ' ' contained 
in a book in which are found more errors and contradictions ; 
more untruthfulness and obscenity than in any publication that 
exists or ever has existed ; or that teaches reliance (solely) on 
that other text (in the same untruthful and immoral book) 
''he that believeth not shall be damned" as warrant for the 
absurd doctrine that all goodness and loving kindness ; all acts 
of mercy, duty, charity, and beneficence ; all lives of truth- 
fulness, uprightness, honor and virtue ; are (in the language 
of piety) but -"filthy rags," and that, notwithstanding all these 
ennobling characteristics, a simple want of faith in so unreason- 
able a doctrine as the Christian church makes requisite, con- 
signs the best and grandest of the human race to an eternity of 
misery ? 

How much longer will it be before intelligent Christians will 
see the folly, the immorality of the dogma of furture punish- 
ment? 



c 



SUPERSTITION. 

The greatest burden of the world is superstition." — Milton. 

OL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, in his lecture on 
Liberty for Man, Woman, and Child, shows the enor- 
mous advance which has been accomplished by the human 
intellect in every department of thought, except in that of 
religion, which, with a very large number of its adherents, 
remains, with scarcely any improvement, the same as it existed 
centuries ago ; and so, while rational thought is constantly 
presenting new problems of life and suggesting improvements 
by which greater advantage to and greater happiness for the 
human race can be secured, it is thwarted by the same or simi- 
lar superstitions which have come down to us from dark and 
ignorant ages. 

We pity the superstitious "poor Indian whose untutored 
mind sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind." Yet, 
people of intelligence indulge in precisely the same belief — 
superstition. Their doctrine of a " special providence," which 
sends the lightning, the tornado and the earthquake, is iden- 
tical with that of the savage. 

Among the superstitious beliefs which the Hindoo mythology 
furnishes is that which attributes vast destructive powers to 
Mahadiva. 

A Presbyterian clergyman at Charleston, S. C. , attributes 
the same destructive powers to God and tells his congregation 
that the earthquake which occurred there a few years since 
was a specific act of God, sent to punish the people of that 
place for their sins ! 

Similar ignorant and absurd utterances may be heard from 
almost any orthodox pulpit. 

(211) 



212 SUPERSTITION. 

Luther claimed that the winds were spirits and that he had 
a faculty of calming them. 

Several of the Reformers believed that comets betokened evil. 
The following lines illustrate their teachings : 

" Eight things there be a comet brings, 
When it on high doth horrid range ; 
Wind, famine, plague and death to Kings, 
War, earthquakes, floods, and direful change." 

Clement, of Alexandria, mentioned the prevailing belief that 
hail storms and tempests and similar phenomena are caused by 
the anger of demons and evil angels. 

Origen states that famine, the blighting of vines and trees 
and the destruction of beasts and men, are the personal works 
of demons. 

Tertulian expressed similar views. 

St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that disease and tempests are 
the direct work of the devil. Indeed, this belief prevailed 
until very recent times. (See Supernatural Religion, vol. i , 
p. 121.) 

Professor Andrew D. White tells us that, owing to some 
superstitious belief, many of the peasants of Russia were pre- 
vented from raising potatoes ; that a superstitious reverence 
for the text, "The wind bloweth where it listeth," caused 
fanning mills (for winnowing wheat) to be widely denounced ; 
that in consequence of the divine displeasure shown to inn- 
keepers in France for setting meat before guests on fast days, 
railways had been introduced and such innkeepers thus pun- 
ished by seeing travelers carried past their doors ! that a 
superstitious fear of the electric current had caused the telegraph 
to be denounced as anti-Christ ; that the breaking of the 
Thames tunnel, with all its destruction to life and property, 
was a judgment from heaven ; that the numbering of the 
people in modern countries met the same displeasure from on 
high as did the numbering of Israel ; that the beneficial effects 
of life insurance had been opposed by some superstitious 
belief; that so strong was the opinion that disease came, not 
from natural causes, but from the malice of the devil, Pope 



SUPERSTITION. 21 3 

Innocent III forbade physicians, under pain of excommunica- 
tion, to undertake medical treatment without calling in ecclesi- 
astical advice ! 

Many physicians* refused to administer anaesthetics to their 
suffering patients on the ground of its being opposed by Bible 
teachings. 

The Christian Register says : ' ' Dr. Briggs never uttered a 
more wholesome truth than when he classed bibliolatry with 
mariolatry and other superstitions." 

The Bible is as much a fetich as was ever believed in by the 
most uncivilized of the human race. The belief in its inspira- 
tion, in its account of creation, in the fall of man, in the prom- 
ised Messiah, in the stories pertaining to Jonah, to Daniel, to 
Elijah, to Noah, to Joshua, are all mere superstitions. 

The ridiculously silly faith in the Bible is illustrated by an 
anecdote. A sailor returning home from a sea voyage told his 
mother of his having seen a flying fish (which are frequently 
seen in tropical waters.) "Why, John, do you tell me such 
a lie?" quoth the mother. Shortly afterwards John told his 
mother that sailing in the Red Sea, one day he fished up one 
of the wheels of Pharaoh's chariot. "John, I know now you 
are telling me the truth, for there is something about this in 
the Bible," said the mother. 

The Indian who acted as messenger between two intelligent 
persons, carrying a piece of paper on which was writing, be- 
lieved that the paper was inspired to talk. 

Is this any more superstitious than the belief of Christians 
that the writings of Moses and Isaiah and Paul and others, 
mere human beings, are — also — inspired ? 

The heathen (so-called) indulge in superstitious incantations 
to drive away disease or send for their priest to avert physical 
ailments, while the Christian's Bible teaches (James v ; 14-15,) 
" Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the 
church ; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in 
the name of the Lord ; and the prayer of faith shall save the 

* Even in this enlightened day. 



214 SUPERSTITION. 

sick." Which is the most superstitious, the heathen or the 
Christian ? 

The doctrines of the atonement, of miraculous conception, 
of virgin birth, of the trinity, of the resurrection, of the ascen- 
sion, of a heaven and a hell, have no known foundation in fact, 
but rest upon belief in the supernatural and are therefore super- 
stitious. 

The dogma of reconciliation, through Christ, between God 
and man, and of endless torment, are thus repudiated by Rev. 
R. Heber Newton. " We read of offerings of sheep and bul- 
locks, all down the ages, to placate an angry God. How very 
superstitious and ignorant that was. . . . Faith has out- 
lived the superstitious doctrines of the atonement and eternal 
punishment. . . . There is not one single passage in the 
Bible which says that Christ was sacrificed to reconcile God to 
man." 

The Bible is the foundation of superstitious beliefs which 
have wrought more woe in the human breast than has been 
occasioned by any other single cause. Read the heartrending 
tales of the heroes and martyrs to Christian cruelty for the 
crime ( !) of disbelief in the incongruities, absurdities, falsehoods 
and indecencies of the Bible. Protestantism and Catholicism 
seemed to vie with each other as to which could inflict the 
greater torture on those honest souls, which those fiend-like, 
religious tyrants called "heretics." 

The superstitious reverence for the Bible and its supposed 
teachings, have been for centuries (as it were) the dark clouds 
of ignorance and fear which almost wholly excluded the light 
of intelligence. Intellectual thought is at least a thousand 
years behind what it would have been had no such fetich as 
the Bible ever existed. The persecutions and harrowing 
deaths of some of the most accomplished scholars in history, 
because they refused to accept the pseudo-science of Moses 
and other writers equally ignorant of the laws of nature, is a 
commentary on the bigotry, the want of intelligence and the 
superstitions which controlled the Christian Church. There 
is one verse in that book which, in its consequences, has shown 



SUPERSTITION. 215 

more vindictiveness and barbarity than can be shown in any- 
other book that was ever written ; that verse h : ' ' Thou shalt 
not permit a witch to live." Think of the scenes of torture 
and cruelty practiced by the Christian religion, because that 
one verse was found within the lids of the Bible. All that is 
humane in us revolts at the horrors which that single verse 
has wrought. Pale, fear-stricken, innocent victims of this 
frightful Christian doctrine to the number of nine millions (!) 
of people have been put to death ; not by the heathen but by 
Christians ; not by the ignorant, but by the educated ; by the 
encouragement which such men of learning as Sir Matthew 
Hale, Sir William Blackstone, Joseph Addison, Martin Luther, 
Cotton Mather, Richard Baxter, and John Wesley gave to this 
most execrable barbarism and stupidly irrational superstition. 
Fanaticism reached its culmination when Christianity insisted 
that this edict of inspiration ( !) this command of a merciful 
( !) God should be put into execution. 

And yet, though Christians now abstain from the perpetra- 
tion of such fiendish cruelty, the same unreasoning reverence 
for the Bible evidences the fact that the superstition which en- 
genders such reverence is the same as has always existed and 
it is only the march of civilization, the greater intelligence of 
the age, the advance made in scientific research {despite the 
hostility of the Christian Church) which has stayed the hand of 
Christian bigots from practicing the same cruelties in this gen- 
eration as they did in generations that are past. 

As Col. Ingersoll says, " If the church could control the 
world to-day, we would go back to chaos and old night. 
Philosophy would be branded as infamous. Science would 
again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars. 
Around the limbs of liberty would climb and leap the bigots' 
flame." 

It was a mere conflict of superstitions between two sects of 
Christians which resulted in a thirty years' war. with its attend- 
ant miseries. 

Three centuries of crusades by Christian Europe against an 
unoffending people, because of a vague superstitious belief in 



2l6 SUPERSTITION. 

a " Holy Sepulchre," cost the world twenty millions of lives 
and untold horror. 

Is it not surprising that there are intelligent men and women 
who appear to be believers in the superstitions regarding 
Friday, the number thirteen, the new moon, the horse shoe, 
passing under a ladder, opening an umbrella in the house, 
breaking a mirror, upsetting a salt cellar, throwing rice or a 
slipper after a bride, the howling of a dog, etc. Such absurdi- 
ties seem unworthy the serious thought of sentient beings. 
Educated believers in such irrational superstitions place them- 
selves on a par with the most ignorant and debased of the 
human race. If it were thought worthy of sufficient notice it 
might be shown that quite as many events of interest and im- 
portance to mankind occurred on Friday as on any other day 
of the week ; for instance : Such as the discovery of America 
and the birthday of Washington ; also that the superstition 
regarding the number thirteen was set at defiance, for instance, 
when the pen of Thomas Paine (which was unquestionably 
" mightier than the sword " of Washington) became the most 
potent factor in securing success to the struggling colonies, 
after the issuance of just thirteen numbers of his Crisis; and 
when the thirteen states, composing the most independent, 
progressive and prosperous republic of which history furnishes 
any record started on their career of greatness and grandeur, 
and were emblematized by a flag waving to the breeze its 
inspiring thirteen stars and thirteen stripes. 

And as to other similar superstitions, there is the most 
abundant evidence of the folly of believing in them. 

What is superstition? The etymology of the word, as de- 
rived from the Latin, does not give it the signification which 
is usually imparted to it. 

President White, late of Cornell University, says: "The 
Greek word superstition signifies, literally, fear of gods or 
demons." 

Plutarch says : ' * The superstitious man believes that there 
are gods and that they are unfriendly to him. A man who 
fears the gods is^never free from fear. He extends his fear 



SUPERSTITION. 217 

beyond his death and believes in the gates of hell and its 
fires, in the darkness, in its ghosts, its infernal judges. The 
superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods — as the 
Atheist does not — but fears to disbelieve in them." 

The Imperial Dictionary defines superstition as belief in the 
direct agency of superior power — as a belief in witchcraft, 
magic and apparition. 

It is defined by Worcester as " the form which religion takes 
when the mind worships a false object. A belief in the exist- 
ence of particular facts or phenomena produced by supernatural 
agency, of which the existence is not proved. ' ' 

By Webster as "an excessive reverence for, or fear of, that 
which is unknown, or mysterious. Belief in the direct agency 
of superior powers, in magic, omens, progjiostics ." 

By Stormont as " remaining in old, obsolete, unreasonable, 
religious belief. Unfounded wonder at, or dread of the divine 
or supernatural. That form of religion in which fear is stronger 
than love. Belief in what is absurd or without evidence. Idle 
fancies and practices in regard to religion and the iinseen 
world. 

Thus it may be seen that lexicographers of the highest 
authority agree, substantially, in defining superstition as a 
belief in supernaturalism, and that supernaturalism is opposed 
to rationalism ; an unfounded and unreasonable dread of some 
unknown and unknowable power ; as fear of the existence of 
what is impossible to demonstrate or reasonable to believe : 
as giving credence to such fancies of the brain as witchcraft, 
magic, apparitions, omens, prophecies and other absurdities ; 
or being so controlled by fear of God or gods, as to compel 
the sacrifice of the natural instincts of love. 

These definitions apply with equal force to every religion 
which has ever existed and to every religion which exists to-day. 

Religion and superstition are convertible laws. There is 
no religion (in the usual meaning of the term) that is not 
superstitious and no superstition which is not allied to some 
religion. 

Hobbs tells us that " religion is superstition in fashion and 



2l8 SUPERSTITION. 

superstition is religion out of fashion. ' ' Undoubtedly the 
social element in religion is a controlling one. 

The three great branches of the Christian church (the 
Romish, the Greek and the Protestant) have their respective 
superstitions, but each regards itself as free from superstition, 
though claiming that both of the others are superstitions. 

A portion of the Protestant church regards the Roman 
Catholic dogma of tran -substantiation as superstitious, but that 
belief in ^^-substantiation is not superstitious (while other 
Protestant sects regard both as superstitious.) 

Each of these three great branches have (what might be 
called) sub-divided superstition. One Protestant sect believes 
the practice of baptism by immersion a superstition, while an- 
other Protestant sect thinks infant baptism superstitious. The 
Armenian thinks Calvanism superstitious and the Calvanist 
thinks Armenianism superstitious. 

The doctrine cf the atonement, future punishment and the 
Trinity are regarded by one portion of the Protestant church 
as superstitious, while those who adhere to those dogmas 
regard those who are not believers in them as worse than 
superstitious. 

Christianity, as opposed to all anti-Christian religions, is 
probably the most presumptious, arrogant and bigoted of all 
religions, notwithstanding the fact that the origin of almost 
every rite, ceremony and belief of the Christian church can be 
traced to religions which existed centuries before the Chris- 
tian era. 

If it was superstitious to believe in the "tonsured head and 
silvery bells and swinging censer " of ancient religions, why is 
it not equally superstitious to believe in precisely the same 
rites when performed in a Christian church ? 

Was it superstitious to venerate the cross as typifying the 
religions of antiquity, and is it not now superstitious to adore 
and worship the same sign as a symbol of Christianity ? 

Were the Pagan celebrations of Christmas and Easter super- 
stitions ? If so, is it not superstitious to believe in the dogmas 
of the Christian church as to observance of these same days ? 



SUPERSTITION. 219 

Was it superstitious to believe in the sacramental use of 
water, and of bread, and of wine, in the centuries prior to the 
coming of Christ ; and is it not superstitious to believe in 
exactly the same rites since Christ came into the world. 

Is it reasonable to believe that the Hindoo tradition of Adami 
and Heva was a superstition ; and that the Jewish fable of Adam 
and Eve is a literal truth ? 

Was it superstitious to believe that Maya gave virgin birth 
to Buddha ; and is it not superstitious to believe that Mary was 
the virgin mother of Jesus ? 

Was it superstitious to believe in the virgin birth of Chrishna, 
and of Romulus and Remus ; and is it not superstitious to be- 
lieve a like impossibility with regard to the founder of Chris- 
tianity ? 

Was it superstitious to believe in all the Holy Madonnas of 
the remote past ; and is it not equally superstitious to believe 
in the Holy Madonna of the Christian's faith ? 

Was the deification of Chrishna, of Gautama, of Laou-tze 
and others (whose lives are almost a perfect parallel with that 
of Christ) superstitions ? If so, why is not the deification of 
Christ a like superstition ? 

Were the Trinities of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, of Buddha, 
Dharma and Sangha ; of Mithra, Oromasdes and Ahriman ; 
of Indra, Varuna and Agni ; of Osiris, Isis and Horus ; of 
Odin, Vili and Ve, superstitions? If so, what reason is there 
for supposing that the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost 
is not likewise a superstition ? 

Was it a superstition to believe in miraculous conception 
by the gods and ghosts of India, Persia, Egypt, China, Japan, 
Greece and Rome ; and is it not superstitious to believe in 
the dogma of miraculous conception by the holy ghost of 
Christianity ? 

One of the most absurd superstitions of either ancient or mod- 
ern times is belief in dreams. It is said that the time occupied in 
even the longest of dreams is but a few seconds. And yet, in 
these few seconds of time, by an idle and vague fancy, on the 
delirium of an irresponsible brain, on a dream (of Joseph, the 



220 SUPERSTITION. 

father of Christ) is founded the whole of the theology of ortho- 
dox Christianity. Can there be anything more unreasonable 
or superstitious than this ? 

Was it a superstition to believe that Ganymede was trans- 
ported to heaven by Jupiter ? Why is it not equally supersti- 
tious to believe in the translation of Enoch, the wafting of 
Elijah by a whirlwind to heaven, or the ascension of Christ ? 

"And Saul said to the witch of Endor, Bring me up Samuel." 
Christians believe that Samuel's ghost thereupon appeared, as 
thoroughly as they believe that Samuel once existed in the 
flesh, and yet these same Christians are unbelievers in any other 
descriptions of spooks. 

Is it any less superstitious to believe in the ghost of Samuel 
than in the ghosts, goblins, gnomes or elves of to-day ; or in 
phantom ships or haunted houses ? 

Was it superstitious to believe that the life of Metalla was 
saved by a sacrifice of a heifer, and is it not superstitious to 
believe that the life of Isaac was saved by the sacrifice of a 
ram ? 

Was it superstitious to believe that the priests of the goddess 
Feronie walked upon burning coals in the fires that were made 
in honor of Apollo, and is it not superstitious to believe the 
Bible story of the three men in the fiery furnace ? 

And is it superstitious to believe that the holy women of 
the temple of Diana walked upon burning coals, barefooted, 
without burning, and not superstitious to believe the teach- 
ings of Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage that "Jesus descended into 
hell . . . and put his bare foot on the hottest coal in the 
fiery furnace? " 

Was it superstitious to believe that, in obedience to a vision 
of the god Serapis, Vespasian effected cures of the blind and 
the lame (as related by Tacitus), and is it not superstitious to 
believe in similar cures recited in the New Testament ? 

Was it superstitious to believe that Hippolites and Alcoste 
were raised from the dead, and is it not superstitious to believe 
in the resurrection of him who was touched by the bones of 
Elisha, of Lazarus and of Christ ? 



SUPERSTITION. 221 

Was it superstitious to believe that Triptolemus was nourished 
by divine milk, and is it not superstitious to believe that Elijah 
was fed by ravens ; that the children of Israel were supplied 
with quail, " by a wind from the Lord," three and a third feet 
deep and more than a thousand square miles in extent ; and 
that, for forty years, Manna rained upon the earth? 

Was it superstitious to believe that Minerva caused streams 
of oil to flow from a rock which she smote, and is it not super- 
stitious to believe that water gushed from a rock smitten by 
Moses ? 

Was it superstitious to believe that the walls of the city of 
Thebes were built by the sound of musical instruments, and is 
it not superstitious to believe that the walls of the city of 
Jericho fell by the sound of trumpets ? 

Is it not preposterous to believe in the utterance of human 
language by ^Esop's dumb animals, and is it not equally pre- 
posterous and is it not supremely superstitious to believe in 
the stories of the talking snake of Eden or of Baalam's col- 
loquial ass ? 

Is it not absurdly unreasonable to give credence to the tales 
of Munchausen, and not equally unreasonable and supersti- 
tious to believe the Bible stories of Jonah, Daniel, Samson and 
Joshua, or the seemingly insane " Revelations of St. John the 
Divine? " 

In the New Testament we are treated to a remarkable ac- 
count of a man who was possessed of a " legion " of devils, 
who were commanded to come out of the man and, obeying, 
entered a herd of two thousand swine, who ran violently 
down a steep hill into the sea and were drowned. Founded 
upon this fable is a legend that these devils "made their 
exit through the fore-feet of the swine, leaving small holes, 
which can be seen on close inspection." Belief in which — 
the Gadarene pig story, or the legend — is the most super- 
stitious ? 

In Matt, xvii-2, Peter is told to go to the sea and cast a hook, 
and in the mouth of the first fish that he takes he is to find a 
piece of money. There is a legend that ' ; the black spot on 



222 SUPERSTITION. 

each side of the haddock, near the gills, is the impression of 
Peter's finger and thumb, when he took the piece of money 
from the fish's mouth." Which of these two fish stories is 
the least believable or the less superstitious ? 

The law given to Moses provided that if a husband became 
jealous of his wife he could test her guilt or innocence by the 
peculiar method of bringing her before the priest and of having 
placed in his hands, in a earthen vessel, some holy (!) water — 
mixed with the dust of the floor — and if the "holy water" 
turned bitter, then the woman's guilt was proved, and she was 
compelled to swallow the bitter water, and if the water did not 
turn bitter, then her innocence was established. 

As regards this infallible ( !) test, " Behold, is it not written " 
in the fifth chapter of the book of Numbers in " God's infallible 
word?" 

In the days of ancient Rome was a somewhat similarly 
peculiar method of testing the guilt or innocence of a sus- 
pected person by compelling such person to swallow a piece 
of bread or cheese of a prescribed weight. The person so 
swallowing, if choked to death, was proved guilty, if not, in- 
nocent. 

Is it possible to determine as to belief in which of these ab- 
surdities is the most superstitious and idiotic ? 

We are told by John of Patmos that "there was war in 
heaven." If so, may it not again occur? Therefore, can 
it be that it is not a superstition to believe in the possible 
turmoil and conflict in heaven, and that it is a superstition to 
believe in the restfulness and peacefulness of Nirvana ? 

Is it superstitious to believe in the inspiration of the Vedas, 
the Zend-avesta, the Tripitaka, the Koran, the Talmud, the 
book of Mormon, and not equally superstitious to believe in 
the inspiration of the Bible ? 

The principle of evil was personalized in India by Mahisasura, 
in Persia by Ahriman, in Egypt by Typhon, in Scandinavia 
by Loki, in Madagascar by Nyang. 

The Christian religion teaches that the Devil of the Bible is 
a personality as real as any of the characters in that book, and 



SUPERSTITION. 223 

as potent for evil as God is for good ; indeed more so ! Is 
not belief in all such creations of the imagination (as being 
actual, real, personalities) intensely superstitious ? 

If Brahma, and Ormuzd, and Thor, and Zeus, and Jupiter, 
and Allah were superstitiously worshiped, what reason is 
there for believing that it is not equally a superstition to 
worship the Jehovah of the Jews or the God of the Christians ? 

The superstitions of religion have robbed truth of her birth- 
right ; have given cordial welcome to tradition, legend and 
fable, while repelling verity, reality and fact. 

"the truth 
With superstitions and tradition taint." — Milton. 

It is these religious superstitions that have incited distrust, 
engendered hate, disaffected families, estranged friends, alien- 
ated neighbors, embittered communities, hostilized nations, in- 
duced fear, impelled to cruelty, extirpated pity, rewarded 
hypocrisy, countenanced deception, prevarication and injustice, 
encouraged ignorance, indolence, improvidence and unclean- 
liness, sneered at "mere morality," true philanthropy and 
sound philosophy, repressed mirth, anathematized laughter, 
ridiculed natural law, perverted human nature, disparaged 
human goodness, stifled natural affection, perverted history, 
opposed progress, discountenanced learning, rebuked investiga- 
tion, discredited discovery, derided invention, persecuted 
genius, and warred upon science. 

The superstitions of no religions have been more detri- 
mental to the well being of mankind than those of the Chris- 
tian faith. 

A vivid, but true, picture of what has resulted from supersti- 
tions, distinctively Christian, may be found in Gibbon' s Chris- 
tianity ', p. 400, viz. : 

"The dark centuries of Christianity succeeded the learn- 
ing and civilization developed under the freedom and toleration 
of ancient Paganism. When the creed of Athanasius ruled 
the European world, humanity was enchained by superstition 
and fanaticism, freedom expelled, reason dethroned and the 
light of intellect quenched in the Cimmerian gloom of faith. 



224 SUPERSTITION. 

When will this octopus of superstition release its clutch 
from che brain of man ? When will this destructive parasite 
cease to feed upon the mental life of the race ? When will this 
blighting curse vanish from the world of intelligence? 

Very much has been accomplished in recent years, in en- 
couraging reasonable beliefs and in discountenancing unthink- 
ing credulity. Very much more remains to be accomplished. 

Let those who believe with Milton that " superstition is the 
greatest burden of the world" be persistent in their efforts to 
do all they can to lighten such burden, to resist whatever 
fetters thought, to oppose whatever endangers mental liberty, 
to war against whatever teachings or inculcations interpose 
between contemplative, rational, honest thought and the 
vagaries, hallucinations and phantoms which are sought to 
be imposed upon the intellect by each and every phase of ir- 
responsible, unjustifiable, unreal, irrational and degrading 
superstition. 



CHURCH AND STATE. 

"Religion is a matter which belongs to the churches and not to 
the state." — Washington. 

THE most distinctive feature, and the most important 
principle, promulgated on the formation of our govern- 
ment, was the complete separation of the church from the 
state. 

Learning the lessons of experience taught by other nations, 
of the persecutions, tortures and butcheries, in which this un- 
natural union has resulted, the founders of our Republic were 
most pronounced in their determination that this fearful blight 
upon the prosperity and happiness of older nations should 
not find entrance on the soil of a people devoted to freedom 
from all "entangling alliances," be they political or ec- 
clesiastical ; and so Washington and Hamilton and Franklin 
and Jefferson and Paine guarded this sacred principle with the 
most jealous and anxious care. 

In orcjer to emphasize and enforce the declaration of this 
principle, in Article VI, Section 3, of the Constitution of the 
United States, it is provided that "no religious test be re- 
quired as a qualification to any office or public trust under the 
United States ;" and in the very first of the amendments to 
the Constitution we read: "Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion." 

Yet, in face of these most positive inhibitions, firmly imbed- 
ded in the Constitution of our country, we hear those over- 

(225) 



226 CHURCH AND STATE. 

zealous in the cause of religion insist that ' ' this is a Christian 
nation." The argument which it is claimed sustains that 
position being that as we were once colonies of Great Britain, 
and subject to her laws, we inherited the laws of the United 
Kingdom. It being maintained that in the absence of positive 
law to the contrary we are subject to the ' ' common law of 
England," and (it being further maintained) that as this law 
is based on the Christian religion, therefore Christianity is the 
fundamental law of the United States. The fallacy of this 
method of reasoning has been often exposed ; by none, perhaps, 
more thoroughly than by what is known as the (i Committee 
for Protecting and Perpetuating the Separation of Church and 
State," a body of gentlemen composed mostly of clergymen 
and other believers in the Christian religion, whose report on 
the question may be found on pages 718 and 719 of the New 
York Churchman of December 11, 1886, which reads, " Neither 
the Constitution of the United States nor that of the State of 
New York authorizes or permits any discrimination or prefer- 
ence in favor of Christianity as against any other religion. 
. . . With the majority of the people Christians, and no 
important body of citizens to advance any claims- for other 
religions, it was inevitable that not only legislation but 
judicial decisions (especially under an elective judiciary) should 
accord with popular opinion. This usage, which will in- 
evitably continue while the prevailing sentiment is Christian, 
is the sole foundation for the claim sometimes made that Chris- 
tianity is established by common law. . . . 

' ' Attention has been called to the claim that the United 
States Constitution recognizes and re-establishes the common 
law of England, and that this is a Christian land. Various 
judicial decisions and legislative enactments are pointed out 
which are distinctly Christian ; therefore it is claimed that Chris- 
tianity in this country is, by law, established. If the argument 
proves anything it proves too much. The common law of 
England was not a Christian law, but was the law of a church 
established by law. The conclusion inevitably would be that 



CHURCH AND STATE. 227 

if the common law of England is recognized and established 
by the Constitution of the United States, then not only Chris- 
tianity but the Church of England, is, by law, established 
here" (!) 

Madison said : "If the common law of England had been 
understood to be the common law of the United States, it is not 
possible to assign a satisfactory reason why it was not ex- 
pressed." And again he says : " Who does not see that the 
same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion 
of all other religions, may establish, with the same ease, any 
particular sect of Christianity in exclusion of all other sects." 

President Madison was so impressed with the belief that 
the state had no business with the churches he vetoed, in 
181 1, a bill to incorporate a church in the District of Columbia. 

Washington, in the treaty made with Tripoli, in 1796, 
distinctly stated : "The government of the United States of 
America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian 
religion." 

Jefferson says it was "meant by the framers of the Con- 
stitution to comprehend within the mantle of protection the 
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the 
Hindoo and the Infidel of every denomination." 

President Jefferson, in 1808, on being petitioned to proclaim 
a day of fasting and prayer, refused, saying : " I consider 
myself interdicted by the Constitution from doing anything 
that pertains to religion." He also refused to appoint thanks- 
giving days. 

Chief Justice Kent, in 1810, denied that Christianity was 
part of the law of the State of New York. 

Ex-President Woolsey, of Yale college, says : " Our Consti- 
tution would require no change to be adapted to a Moham- 
medan nation." 

The Christia?i Register says : " Ours is not a Christian 
government. It is a civil government strictly and exclusively. 
. . . A Christian government implies a state religion." 

For Judge Samuel F. Miller, speaking for the Supreme 



228 CHURCH AND STATE. 

Court of the United States, says : ' ' The law knows no heresy, 
is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment 
of no sect." 

Lord Chief Justice Coleridge said: "Christianity is no 
longer the law of the land." 

Judge Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
says : " The Constitution of 1790 . . . expressly declares : 
' No man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or sup- 
port any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against 
his consent ; no human authority can, in any case whatever, 
control or interfere with the rights of conscience ; and no 
preference shall be given, by law, to any religious establish- 
ment or modes of worship. ... It must have been 
intended to extend equally to all sects, whether they believed 
in Christianity or not and whether they were Jews or Infidels." 

Even the Roman Catholic Cardinal Manning (in the Forum 
of March, 1889,) takes the position that as the entire separa- 
tion of church and state is a fundamental principle of the 
Republic, therefore the state knows nothing of Christianity. 

Rev. Dr. Gregg, of the Park Street Church, Boston, says : 
V It (the Constitution) offers no more protection to the religion 
of Jesus Christ than the religion of Buddha." 

Rev. Dr. Armitage says : ' ' The Baptists maintain that so 
far as the civil government is concerned a man may be a 
Jew, Mohammedan, Christian, Pagan or Infidel with impunity. 

Rev. Wm, Chauncy Langdon, of St. James Rectory, Bed- 
ford, Pa., says : " From no principle of English social or 
political life did the revolution separate our fathers more 
effectually and more thoroughly than from that which recog- 
nized an established religion of the state." 

The late Bishop Phillips Brooks said : " Every institution in 
which the doctrine of a particular church is inculcated ought, 
for its own sake and the state's sake, to be guarded most 
jealously from any connection with state support." 

Such is the opinion of all intelligent, broad-minded people, 
whether they are Christians or not. 



CHURCH AND STATE. 229 

The laws of our various States are (like the Bible) con- 
tradictory and inconsistent. They all assert, with much 
" flourish of trumpets," the principle of separation of church 
and state and at the same time adopt other laws which are 
dictated by the church. They all provide for the equality 
of their citizens before the law and yet certain citizens are 
deprived, by law, of their rights. 

The constitution of Illinois recites: "The free exercise 
of religious profession, without discrimination, shall be for- 
ever guaranteed, and no person shall be denied any civil or 
political right, privilege or capacity on account of his relig- 
ious opinions." And yet there are several laws there en- 
acted in the interest of a particular religious faith. 

In the bill of rights of Arizona we read : ' ' The civil and 
political rights of no person shall be abridged or enlarged 
on account of his opinions or belief concerning matters of 
religion." And yet restraining laws with reference to Sun- 
day, to (what is called) blasphemy, oaths, etc., are passed. 

Blasphemy, in some of the States, consists in questioning 
the deity of one of the sons of Joseph and Mary, or of the 
(incomprehensible and impossible) doctrine of the Trinity. 

The constitution of Tennessee (in Article I, Section 3) pro- 
vides that " No preference shall ever be given by law to any 
religious establishment or mode of worship ... no human 
authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with 
the rights of conscience." And yet, in article IX, Section 2, 
it is also provided that "No person who denies the being of 
God, or a future state of reward and punishment, shall hold any 
office in the civil department of this State." And in the same 
article, Section 1, it is also provided that no minister of the 
Gospel, or priest, shall be eligible to a seat in either house 
of the legislature." It is in this State that, recently, three 
of its inhabitants (Christian men, too) were imprisoned for 
weeks because they exercised the "rights of conscience," 
which the constitution of Tennessee guaranteed to them, in 
observing the seventh, instead of the first day of the week as 
a religious day. 



23O CHURCH AND STATE. 

In several of the States the testimony of Agnostics, in the 
courts, is made liable to discredit, and in other of the States 
their testimony is forbidden. 

Although, as has been said, the principle which sustains the 
separation of church and state is boldly enunciated by all, the 
violation of this principle is shown in the appropriation of 
National and State monies for religious purposes ; in the 
exemption of church property from taxation ; in the pay- 
ment of chaplains to the army, navy, prisons, legislative 
bodies, etc. ; in the teaching of religion in the public schools ; 
in the enactment of Sunday laws ; in the proclamation of fast 
or thanksgiving days. 

With reference to appropriating money for religious in- 
stitutions, Col. Rush C. Hawkins has furnished statistics which 
show such appropriations in twelve years, from 1875 to 
1886, to have aggregated $12,500,000 iohNew York city alone, 
of which sum Roman Catholic institutions received nearly two- 
thirds. 

A great wrong has, for years, been perpetrated by the 
practice of making (United States government) appropria- 
tions for " Indian schools," all of which are sectarian institu- 
tions, where the tenets of the respective religious denominations 
are taught. Hon. Thomas J. Morgan, ex-commissioner of 
Indian affairs, has made an exhaustive report on these matters, 
prefacing it with the patriotic utterance that he comes "to 
plead for America, for the Republic, for our most cherished 
and'characteristic institutions, for free thought, free speech, a 
free press, free schools, free ballots and freedom of conscience. " 
General Morgan informs us that this system was inaugurated 
in 1877, when the modest little sum of $20,000 was appropria- 
ted from the Federal treasury ; but which in sixteen years has 
grown to $2,300,000 ! (nearly two-thirds of which went to the 
Roman Catholic church). 

The Baptist church has always been the most pronounced 
of (probably) all the churches in the advocacy of the principle 
that the state and the church should be absolutely separate, 



CHURCH AND STATE. 231 

and it is exceedingly gratifying to state that at a meeting of the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society, in May, 1891, this 
society, in refusing to longer violate the principle it believed 
in, gave utterance to these true and honest words : " History 
is proof that the meddling of ecclesiastics with civil govern- 
ment has embittered political discussions ; has added relig- 
ious fanaticism to partisan rancor ; has divided society ; has 
engendered civil international wars ; has made princes the 
tools of prelates, and has endangered the very existence of 
the state. . . . The hand of the church on the state has 
induced hypocrisy, formality ; a church palsied and corrupt." 

The Methodists and Congregationalists have, more recently, 
also refused to accept the share which was more recently allot- 
ted to them, and still more recently the Episcopalian and 
Presbyterian churches have taken similar action. 

In the J^ree Thought Magazine of Sep., 1893, is an article on 
the taxation of church property, showing the rank injustice of a 
system which (virtually) takes money from the community 
and gives it to the churches to disseminate their dogmas. 
This article gives estimates of the value of church property 
exempted by law from taxation ; beginning with that of Rev. 
James Freeman Clarke, who placed the value of such exempted 
property at $87,000,000 in 1850. Following this are estimates 
made by Samuel Roberts, Judge Westbrook and General 
Grant, showing that such exempt property doubles in value 
decennially (or approximately so). Thus we have the startling 
figure of $3,000,000,000 as the probable value of exempt 
church property five years hence, and the alarming sum of 
$100,000,000,000 (!) in 1950, zm/ess some action be taken 
(as has been done in California) to do justice to the rest of the 
community by compelling the churches to pay their equitable 
share of taxation. 

It is gratifying to note a disposition to right this great 
wrong on the part of the more liberal minded and honest of 
the clergy, and of the religious press. As illustrations of this 
fact two quotations (among many others) may be furnished, 



232 CHURCH AND STATE. 

viz. : ''That which is protected by the government may 
justly be compelled to maintain it. ... I would like to 
see all church property throughout the land taxed to the last 
dollar's worth." — Rev. Dr. Shipment, of Christ Church, New 
York city. 

" In the wiser day coming every dollar of church personal 
value and every foot of church land will pay taxes to support 
honest secular government. Remission of taxes for church 
and church school uses is a secular gift to churches." — N. W. 
Christian Advocate. 

The Baptists of Baltimore, of Montreal and of other places 
have already taken action in favor of taxing church property. 

"The Minister's Association of the United Presbyterian 
Church, at their October meeting in Pittsburgh, debated the 
question of church exemption from taxation and decided that 
such exemption was wrong." — Truth Seeker. 

One of the most absurd violations of this principle of church 
and state separation is the appointment of chaplains to be paid 
from the secular treasury, A portion of the money raised by 
the tax levy goes to support persons employed by the State 
to enunciate certain dogmas {not one of which they know any- 
thing about). 

Both the State and the United States governments pay for 
the teaching of these dogmas in the army and navy, in our 
prisons, in our legislative and congressional halls. Is there a 
more useless expenditure of money, to say nothing of the wrong 
of teaching religion at the expense of the State? 

Judge Waite tells us that the church failed to introduce 
chaplains into the convention that framed the Federal Constitu- 
tion. In the earlier Congresses the church was more success- 
ful. In 1839, 1840, 1845, 1850 and i860 there was vigorous 
opposition to the continuance of the chaplains. But the church 
thus far has proved too much for the state. 

There is ?iot the slightest warrant in law for appropriating 
money to pay chaplains. 

The reading ofjthe Bible and the inculcation of religion in 



CHURCH AND STATE. 233 

our public schools is another phase of the violation of the 
principle of non-union of church and state. This has long 
been a most vexed question and has engendered the bitterest 
feeling among Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Agnostics. A 
more intelligent and liberal view of this subject is constantly 
gaining ground, and people are more and more induced to 
agree with the late Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby (a thoroughly 
orthodox Presbyterian clergyman) when he says : " We might 
as well insist on reading the Bible in a machine shop as in a 
public school. . . . There is no safety for our country but 
in non-religious, elementary education in our public schools. 
. . . If the state is to teach religion, what religion is it to 
furnish? The Roman Catholic, the Jewish, the Chinese, the 
Agnostic? . . . Is it not better that the Atheist should 
make his children Atheists than to break up the country and 
array men against each other ? " 

Sunday laws, another violation of principle, are on the statute 
book of every State in the Union, notwithstanding the fact 
that there is not the slightest warrant for the religious 
observance of that day to be found within the lids of any book 
which is recognized as authority. I challenge any of the clergy 
or any other believer of Christianity to produce such warrant. 
On the contrary, very many of the church fathers, the Reform- 
ers of the sixteenth century, and all the enlightened and honest 
of the clergy of to-day, have acknowledged that our Sunday 
laws have no foundation whatever in the Christian or any other 
religion. 

Again, the principle of church and state is violated by the 
appointment of days of fasting, prayer and thanksgiving. 
President Cleveland recently issued a proclamation in which 
he calls upon the American people to render thanks to the 
" Supreme Ruler of the Universe," to pray to the " Father of 
all mercies " for blessings, to seek the favor of the "Giver of 
every good and perfect gift," to meet in our "accustomed 
places of worship" and evince our gratitude to "Almighty 
God," to acknowledge the "goodness of God," to invoke 
" Divine approval," etc., etc. 



234 CHURCH AND STATE. 

Mr. Cleveland was elected President of the United States for 
no such purpose. He cannot show the slightest authority for 
any such act. He issues this proclamation at the dictation (or 
in the fear) of not one-third — probably not one-tenth — of the 
people of this country. 

It is an etra executive act. 

Is this government of ours a Theocracy ? One might think 
we were living in the days of ancient Israel, when " thus saith 
the Lord" was the talisman by which national existence was 
sustained. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the principle on which our 
government was founded is already violated by laws enacted in 
the interest of the Christian religion, there is an attempt on the 
part of even more fanatical Christians to do still further violence 
to the spirit which was the guiding principle of the fathers ol 
pur Republic. 

Many attempts have been made to change the preamble to 
the Constitution of the United States so as to recognize the 
Christian religion ; and a most determined (but fortunately 
unsuccessful) effort was made during last year under the au- 
spices of the "National Reform Association," which, with the 
"American Sabbath Union," are the two chief conspirators 
against the liberties of the Nation. These traitors to our 
country are working diligently for the overthrow of that "jus- 
tice, domestic tranquility, general welfare and blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity," which was ordained 
and established by the Constitution of the United States. 

What would be the consequences of their success ? Precisely 
what it has been whenever Christianity has clutched at the 
throat of the state and made it subservient to the church. 

But let these religious bigots speak for themselves, in order 
that we know definitely their purposes. 

The Christian Reformer says: "The chief thing for us to 
do is to demolish the secular theory of government and recon- 
struct the Constitution on a Christian theory." 

Rev. M. A. Gault says : "It cost us all one civil war to blot 



CHURCH AND STATE. 235 

slavery out of the Constitution, and it may cost us another war 
to blot out its infidelity." 

Rev. J. W. Foster says : "The state and its sphere exist 
for the sake of, and to serve the interests of the church." 

Rev. E. B. Graham says : " If the opponents of the Bible 
do not like our government and its Christian features, let them 
go to some wild, desolate land, and . . . stay there till 
they die." 

Rev. Dr. Edwards says : " We want state and religion, and 
we are going to have it. . . . It shall be revealed religion 
— the religion of Jesus Christ." 

Rev. Samuel Small says : " I want to see the day when the 
church shall be the arbiter of all legislation, National, State 
and municipal ; when the great churches of the country can 
come together harmoniously and issue their edict, and the 
legislative powers respect it and enact it into law." 

At a meeting of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, at New- 
burgh, the following resolution was adopted, viz : "That we 
will endeavor to teach more forcibly the duty of our Nation to 
God, and the Bible view of civil government, and maintain our 
political dissent in refusing our elective franchise to put into 
office men who are bound by their official oaths to support the 
Constitution of the United States." 

The Protestants are making overtures to the Roman Cath- 
olics to co-operate for the purpose of supplanting this Democ- 
racy of ours with a Theocracy, forgetful of the fact (which 
Protestantism has ever claimed) that the Romish Church is 
symbolized by the woman of Babylon, "drunken with the 
blood of saints." 

But this conspiracy against the Republic and against its 
more cherished institutions will never succeed. The intelli- 
gence of the age, the growth of knowledge, the progress of 
scientific discoveries, the "higher criticism " of the times, the 
advance of liberal thought, the love of justice and respect for 
truth will all work in harmony for the protection and perpetu- 
ation of the noblest heritage ever bequeathed to a nation. 



236 CHURCH AND STATE. 

The Christian Catilines may succeed in stirring up bitterness, 
animosities, contentions, strifes, perhaps wars ; but the grand 
principle which underlies all that makes this country the envy 
of other nations — the principle of the non-union of church and 
state — is an indestructible and immovable foundation. 

Christianity began to manifest its arrogance and malevolence 
the very day it ascended the throne of the Caesars. It seemed 
to have (at once) imbibed the spirit of tyranny and persecution 
from the murderous despot who was the first to unite the 
Christian church with the state. 

Notwithstanding the atrocious character of Constantine, 
Christians seem to delight in speaking of him as " the great 
Christian emperor." 

Had the church never formed the unholy alliance with the 
state, Christianity would doubtless have remained the simple, 
practical, beneficent religion that it was when founded by its 
author, instead of the pretentious, imperious, intolerant, unjust 
system which it has become. 

Speaking of the religious persecutions, and of the wars 
which for centuries carried terror, desolation and death 
throughout Europe, Buckle says : ' ' Not one would have arisen 
if the great truth, that the state had no concern with the opin- 
ions of men, had been recognized." 

The late Rev. Philip ScharT, D. D., LL. D., says: "The 
principle of persecution — to the extent of burning heretics — is 
inseparable from the union of church and state." 

Rev. James M. King says : "Whatever religion has been 
wedded to the state, individual conscience has been debauched ; 
and a gigantic, tyrannical, political machine has been insti- 
tuted." 

Bishop Venner says : " The mixing up of politics with re- 
ligion is fraught with manifold and multiform dangers. . . . 
There is no tyranny so cruel, no yoke so intolerable, as priest- 
craft, when vested with temporal power. . . . More po- 
litical atrocities, butcheries, crimes and enormities have been 
committed in the-name, and on the account, of religion than 
have arisen from any and all other causes combined." 



CHURCH AND STATE. 237 

Dr. McGlynn says : " The union of church and state means 
the corruption of both." 

The Jewish Times says : ' ' A careful compilation of sectarian 
enactments teaches us that religious fanaticism and intolerance 
injected into politics have united church and state. There is 
not one of these enactments that may not one day be invoked 
against citizens who profess the Christian religion. . . . 
The Adventists, Jews, Agnostics, the great body of the Ration- 
alists at large, have not the ' equal rights ' guaranteed by the 
Constitution that Christians have." 

The Western Unio?i says : ' ' No religious man can advocate 
legislative action in behalf of religion without endangering his 
own religions liberty.'''' 

Rev. Dr. Silverman, speaking of the movements in Con- 
gress to recognize Christianity in the Constitution, says : " It 
may result in using the civil power to make men pray and 
read the Bible. They tried to benefit society in that way in 
the middle ages." 

Prof. Francis E. Abbott, editor of the Index sounds this 
note of alarm in the ears of the fanatical traitors who seek to 
tamper with our Constitution, and thus, perhaps, accomplish 
the overthrow of the Republic : " I make no threat whatever, 
but I state truth, fixed as the hills, when I say that before you 
carry this measure and trample on the freedom of the people, 
you will have to wade through seas of blood ; every man who 
favors it voted to precipitate the most frightful war of modern 
times. ' ' 

It is a singular fact that while, throughout Europe, they are 
trying to rid themselves of the influence of the church in mat- 
ters of state, in this country Christian zealots are trying to 
fasten the church upon the state. 

In France, while they are taking the word "God" out of 
their public schools, in this country a set of fanatics are at 
work to put this word in our Constitution. 

One word (in conclusion) as to who it is that makes this 
demand that the Christian church become a partner with the 
state in administering the government. 



238 CHURCH AND STATE. 

It is an an anomalous fact that this demand comes mainly 
from those who profess to be believers in " the right of private 
judgment," but who practically deny it. 

What portion of the people is it that insist that the church 
shall control the state ? 

The New York Evangelist (edited by Rev. Henry M. Field, 
D. D.,) says: "Four-fifths (eighty per cent.) of the young 
men of the country are skeptics." 

Henry Ward Beecher said that * ' Ninety per cent, of those 
engaged in the higher field of research are Agnostics." 

Rev. Geo. J. Mingens says : " Of the 40,000 people who die 
every year in New York city, not ten per ce?it. believe in God." 

The Mail a?id Express says that in California only five per 
cent, of those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years 
of age ever attend church. 

Rev. J. W. Waddell says : "Only one in ten of the popula- 
tion of Chicago are Christians." 

Dr. Dorchester says that in Colorado only one in twenty are 
Christians ; in Nevada, one in forty-six ; in Wyoming one in 
eighty-one ; in Arizona, one in 685 ! 

All of the above are religious (Christian) authority, by which 
we learn that, probably, not exceeding ten per cent, of the peo- 
ple of this country could, by any possibility, be favorable to a 
system which would accomplish a union of church and state ; 
and yet, owing to their method of organization and facility 
of co-operation, to their great wealth and (consequent) influ- 
ence, and to the fear which religion has ever — more or less — 
influenced and controlled (especially the masses of) the people, 
this one-tenth of our population has succeeded in gaining the 
mastery of the nine-tenths. 

But this state of things will surely have its limitation. There 
is growing inquiry among thinking people as to ' ' why religion 
should any longer claim our allegiance ' ' (to quote the language 
of John Fiske.) 

The theory of evolution has undermined the foundation 
dogma of the " fall of man ;" the criticisms of liberal minded 



CHURCH AND STATE. 239 

Christian writers are gradually removing from the blinded eyes 
of faith all reverence for an untruthful and vulgar Bible. 

Christian ministers pronounce the doctrine of the atonement 
superstitious, if not immoral ; Christianity is discovered to be 
but an inheritance from older religions; the term "God" is 
largely believed to be synonymous with nature. 

The dogma of the Trinity obtains the assent of no thinking 
person ; scarcely anyone now believes in endless punishment ; 
heaven is now said to be a " condition " and not a place. 

Surely, with these tendencies to more intelligent thought, 
the time will come (and in the near future) when those who 
believe in perpetuating the blessing of a secular government, 
which its founders bequeathed to us, will celebrate a substantial 
victory over the wiles of the most unreasoning and unjust 
enemy with which this country has contended or can contend, 
viz. : the Christian church (or at least that portion of the 
Christian church which would risk the destruction of this 
country for the sake of imposing upon its people a series of 
unprovable and effete dogmas. ) 



ABOU BEN ADHEM INGERSOLL 

Dear Mr. Green : — I have read, with the greatest in- 
terest, the article on page 409 of the July number of your 
Magazine taken from the Chicago Tribune (and which I see is 
copied in the N. Y. Telegram of 5th inst. ) giving an account 
of Frederick Douglass' introduction of Col. Ingersoll on 
Emancipation day in Washington twelve years ago, when 
Mr. Douglass, stepping to the front of the platform and dis- 
carding the usual formulas of introduction quoted the follow- 
lowing lines : — 

" Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw, within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, 
An Angel, writing in a book of gold ; — 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
' What writest thou ? ' the vision raised its head, 
And, with a look made of all sweet accord, 
Answered ' The names of those who love the Lord.' 
' And is mine one ? ' said Abou. ' Nay, not so, ' 
Replied the angel, Abou spoke more low, 
But cheerily still ; and said, ' I pray thee, then, 
Write me as one that loves his fellow -men.'' 

" The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
It came again with a great wakening light, 
And showed the names whom love of God had bless'd, 
And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." 

It was a truly graceful, most fitting and well earned tribute 

from the foremost of those who were emancipated from the 

(240) 



ABOU BEN ADHEM INGERSOLL. 241 

thraldom of bodily slavery to the grandest of those who have 
fought against both bodily and mental slavery. 

Leigh Hunt must nave had some such loving nature as that 
of Col. Ingersoll in his mind when he penned his Abou Ben 
Adhem. 

I must confess, in reading the article, to having experienced 
considerable of the emotional, even, almost, to the tearful 
point. 

The appropriateness of Mr, Douglass' introduction of Col. 
Ingersoll is appreciated by all who know the large heartedness 
of the latter. He embraces in his love of the human family 
persons of every color, nationality and creed. 

He has his hates, but not for any human being. He hates 
superstition (supernaturalism) as does every one else who is a 
thorough believer in natural law. 

It is because of his love of his fellow men and his desire for 
their well-being and happiness that he would fain open the 
eyes of their understandings to the truth, which is to be found 
only outside of superstitious beliefs. He would drive the 
gaunt spectre of fear from every hearthstone. He would (to 
quote his own words) ' ' take from the cradle its curse and 
from the coffin its terror;" and in place of sadness and mourn- 
fulness, which these beliefs occasion, he would substitute 
hope, trust, harmony and all the reasonable pleasures of life. 

As Edgar Fawcett has expressed it in his ode to Ingersoll, 
(in the Arena, December, 1893.) 

" For thy soul in its large love of man, 
In its heed of his welfare and cheer, 
Bids him hurl to the dust whence they spring, 
All idolatries fashioned by fear." 

Like Voltaire, Col. Ingersoll' s intellectual greatness is much 
lost sight of in the bigotry of ecclesiasticism ; and, like 
Thomas Paine, his services to his country and to humanity, to 
principle, to justice and to truth, are largely forgotten in the 
prejudice which an unreasoning belief in tradition, legend, 
fable and miracle engenders. 



242 ABOU BEN ADHEM INGERSOLL. 

No man lives who has made greater sacrifices for what he 
conscientiously believed to be true. There is scarcely any po- 
sition to which he might not have attained had he subscribed 
to a theology which his intelligence had rejected. 

I believe that, in the generations to come, of all the grand 
characters who have marked epochs in history, who have 
striven to elevate the condition of their fellow-men, and who, 
by brilliancy of thought, kindly utterance, convincing logic, 
beauty of imagery and inspiriting eloquence, have impressed 
their worth and greatness on the world of intelligence, none 
will stand out in bolder relief than that of Col. Robert G. 
Ingersoll. 

I lent the magazine to my friend and Col. Ingersoll' s friend, 
Frederick Taylor, who, being an orator himself, knows what 
oratory is. He sent me the enclosed letter in reply. 
Yours truly, 

Henry M. Taber. 

New York, July 8, 1805. 

From Frederick Taylor. 

New York, June 6, 1895. 

Dear Mr. Taber : — I have read the article to which you 
called my attention and enjoyed it immensely. The incident 
was certainly delightful and I do not wonder that the great 
orator was "visibly affected." It reminds me of another 
occasion in his career, — when one of the greatest orators that 
ever lived, Henry Ward Beecher, facing an audience of thou- 
sands in the city of Brooklyn, introduced Col. Ingersoll in 
these words : — 

"Fellow Citizens: — I nozv have the pleasure to introduce to 
you the best talker of the English language on the globe, my 
friend Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. ' ' Yours truly, 

Fred. Taylor. 



IMMORTALITY. 

"The cradle asks whence; the coffin asks whither!" — Ingersoll. 
"To die and go — we know not where." — Measure for Measure. 
"If a man die, shall he live again ? "—Job, xiv : 14. 

THE New York Morning Advertiser recently opened its 
columns to the discussion of the question, " Is the soul 
immortal?" For several weeks it printed daily many letters 
on the subject, which expressed the greatest variety of opinion. 
It was a courageous act of the editors, for it doubtless met the 
frowns of very many of its orthodox readers, who would gladly 
have ignored or suppressed any such discussion, and some of 
whom, I doubt not, "boycotted" the paper in consequence 
of permitting it. 

But why should not intelligent thought exercise itself on so 
momentous a question as to whether man has a soul and as to 
whether it is, or is not, immortal. 

The freedom of opinion on this, and on kindred subjects, 
cannot have too wide a latitude. 

Every one should have a right to express any opinion which 
may be honestly held, without fear of the displeasure of those 
who are zealous in defence of the 

"Unquestioned faith, unvitalized by thought," 

of their mother's religion. 

I maintain, though, that (if Spiritualists, who believe in 
ghosts and doubtless think they have evidence of their exist- 
ence, be excepted) no one has the right to claim the pos- 
session of absolute knowledge as to what is called the soul, 
or spirit of man ; for how is it possible for any one to know 
positively anything about it, about its present or future exist- 

(243) 



244 IMMORTALITY. 

ence ? Not till we have tidings from that ' ' undiscovered 
country, from whose bourn no traveler returns " can we know 
anything of another life. 

Prof. Max Muller says : ' ' We possess to-day no more mate- 
rials for the satisfactory treatment of this problem (the present 
or future existence of a soul) than did the sages of Egypt, 
Palestine, India, Persia and Greece." 

Lazarus is reported to have been dead many days and, pre- 
sumably, to have had experience in a future life (if there be 
one.) If he had such experience, did he give his fellow man 
the benefit of that experience ? 

John Fiske says : **It is not likely that we shall ever suc- 
ceed in making the immortality of the soul a matter of scientific 
demonstration, for the lack of requisite data. It must ever 
remain an affair of religion, rather than of science. " 

The late Prof. Proctor says: "Herbert Spencer shows 
abundantly the nothingness of the evidence on which the com- 
mon belief in a future life has been based." 

' ' The only basis for our faith in immortality must be found 
in revelation." — Prest. Barnard of Columbia College, New York 
City. 

Rev. Minot J. Savage says: "Have we any proof of im- 
mortality? ... I cannot think we have anything which 
may be called evidence concerning an immortal life. . . . 
Immortality is not susceptible of proof." 

The Ckristia?i Register of April 7, 1887, gives the opinion of 
various scientists on the question of immortality, among others 
that of Prof. E. S. Moore, viz. : " I have never seen anything 
in the discoveries of science which could in the slightest 
degree support a belief in immortality." 

Tyndall says : ' ■ Divorced from matter, where is life to be 
found?" 

Haeckel says : "We can as little think of an individual soul, 
separated from our brain, as we can conceive of the voluntary 
motion of our arm apart from the contraction of its muscles, 
or the circulation of our blood apart from the action of the 
heart." 



IMMORTALITY. 245 

Rev. R. Heber Newton says : " We know nothing of life 
that is disembodied. . . . We know nothing of mind 
apart from matter. ... I have no confidence in any faith 
which is not capable of a scientific basis." 

" I do not deny immortality as a Christian — I only deny it 
as a philosopher." — Pompanazzi. 

Whittier would peer into what may possibly be beyond this 
life, but is compelled to say : 

"Death comes — life goes — the asking eye 
And ear are answerless ; 
The grave is dumb, the hollow sky 
Is sad with silentness." 

"We do not know whether death is a door or wall; a 
spreading of pinions or the folding forever of wings." — 
Ingersoll. 

Every argument in favor of immortality is based on the (ut- 
terly improbable) supposition that Jesus Christ actually rose 
from the dead and that he ascended to heaven. The belief in 
the resurrection of Christ, and of the other dead is inter- 
dependent upon the truth of either — if we are to accept the 
statement which Paul makes in Cor. xv. 16: 17, viz. : " If the 
dead rise not, then is Christ not raised. If Christ be not raised, 
your faith is vain." 

But let us refer to the bible for proof that many of the 
writers in it were actual ^believers in a future life. Solo- 
mon says : "They — the sons of men — are but as beasts, for 
that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts. As 
the one dieth, so dieth the other. Yea, they have all one 
breath and man hath no pre-eminence over the beasts. The 
dead know not anything, neither have they any more a re- 
ward." 

Job says : "As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, 
so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. ' ' 

Isaiah says : " They are dead, they shall not live ; they are 
deceased, they shall not rise." 

Paul says : " God only hath immortality." 



246 IMMORTALITY. 

The Bible is quoted from for evidence on this question by 
both believers and non-believers in immortality — as the Bible 
has always been appealed to by both the advocates and op- 
ponents of slavery, of temperance and of polygamy. Of 
course in so contradictory a book it is easy to find texts in sup- 
port of either side of any of these questions. 

Even if there be such a place as heaven, and even if all go 
to it, what assurance have we of it being any better than the 
present life? Why should we not expect the same conten- 
tions, strifes and conflicts there that exist here ? for what has 
been may again occur, and we have the Bible as authority for 
such supposition, it telling us that once "there was war in 
heaven. ' ' 

If the doctrine of immortality be true where are the billions 
on billions of souls which are supposed to have passed from the 
earth ? Where is heaven ? How many souls is it capable of 
containing ? Where is hell ? What is its capacity as regards 
accommodation for a far larger number of souls than become 
inhabitants of heaven ? In view of the probability of others of our 
planets being inhabited, and of the further probability that every 
star has also a planetary system, teeming with life, somewhat, 
perhaps like that which exists here, it may again be asked 
where is the abode of the future life, and what are its capabilities 
for the incalculable number of souls, which, according to the 
Christian religion are engaged continually, in singing, " Glory 
hallelujah, and of playing upon golden harps in the one place 
and of writhing in hopeless and eternal agony in the other ? 

A great variety of opinions exist on the subject of immortal- 
ity. Some believe that only a few have eternal life and others 
that all have it. Some that the future life has no end, others 
that it is restricted in duration. Some that (what is called) 
the soul, immediately ascends to the heavenly abode, or enters 
the place of enternal torment. Others that it sleeps between 
death and resurrection. Some that it passes through a purga- 
torial state ; others that it is transmigratory. Some that it 
is an immaterial ; others that it is a material soul. Some be- 
lieve in a separate, distinct, identical spirit ; others in absorp- 



IMMORTALITY. 247 

tion into universal spirit. Some say that heaven is a place, 
others that it is a condition. 

Immortality is a conception of the brain regarding a future 
life for what is called the breath, spirit, soul, mind, intelligence, 
consciousness, animation or psychic force. There is no con- 
sensus of opinion, no definite idea regarding it. 

It is a curious fact that those who profess belief in im- 
mortality, in a life of the most perfect joy, of infinite bliss, and 
who regard themselves as "poor worms of the dust," (or 
who say they do), and who call this life a " vale of tears," are 
in no hurry whatever to change it for the "better world." 

"I have been struck with the fact that even those who 
have put their trust in the teachings of a future life, find that it 
has failed to give satisfaction in the hour of trial." — Rev. M. J. 
Savage. 

If those who claim that they believe in a glorious immortality 
actually did believe in it, why should they not welcome death 
as a means by which they can enter the incomparable realms 
of felicity ? 

"Were the soul immortal, would the mind 
Complain of death, and not rejoice to find 
Itself let loose, and leave this clay behind?" 

Herodotus says : "The Egyptians were the first who asserted 
the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal. ' ' 

The Greeks had their Elysium where " the righteous dead 
inherit a tearless eternity." But the majority of educated peo- 
ple, of classical antiquity, especially during the highest period 
in Greek culture, had but little faith in the doctrine of personal 
immortality. 

The Scandinavians had their Walhalla "where fallen heroes 
were, and where the favorite horse and armor were ever ready 
for use." 

The doctrine of immortality does not appear in the earlier 
accounts of Jewish history. "He slept with his fathers" is all 
that is said of the dead of that period. 

Bishop Warburton says: "Moses failed to teach belief in a 
future life. " 



248 IMMORTALITY. 

Rev. Dr. Charles A. Briggs says : "There is no evidence 
to show that in old Testament times, there was any thought 
that there was everlasting life then for the individual. ' ' 

Rabbi Vidaver says : ' ' The resurrection of the dead and 
future reward and punishment are neither mentioned or even 
hinted at in any of the five books of Moses." 

It was not till five hundred years after Moses (or one thou- 
sand years before Christ) that the idea of resurrection began 
to be entertained by the Jews, and then rather in a national 
than in a personal sense. The book of Daniel was written 
about 1 65 B. C. , and in it is the first trace of the doctrine of 
immortality in the Bible. 

Bishop Tileston says : " The immortality of the soul is 
rather supposed or taken for granted, than expressly revealed 
in the Bible." 

It is interesting to inquire as to what period in the process 
of evolution — from monera to man — did our ancestors become 
possessed of a soul (if such there be). Was it anterior to, or 
succeeding, the anthropoid state, or was it a gift to the dwell- 
ers in caves, or to the more advanced in civilized life ? Who 
can tell ? Is the soul an ante-natal or a post-natal acquisition ? 
Who knows ? 

It is usual to speak of the human body as mortal, and of the 
soul (or spirit, or breath, or mind) as immortal. In the evo- 
lutionary process of nature from the dissolution of the body 
in the earth, giving vitality to vegetable growths, and these 
again to the sustenance of animal life and so on through infin- 
ity (so far as we may know) is it not more reasonable to believe 
that the body through these natural processes continuously 
perpetuating life, becomes, in a certain sense, zwmortal? 
While the breath or spirit, ceasing to exist, at least apparently 
so, when separated from the body, is, therefore, the mortal 
part of man ? 

Biichner, in his " Force and Matter," says : " The phrases 
' mortal body ' and ' immortal spirit ' are misnomers. Exact 
thought might possibly reverse the adjectives. ' ' 

The doctrine of a future state of existence is claimed by 



IMMORTALITY. 249 

Orthodox Christianity to be a comforting one. Is it comfort- 
ing to believe in a doctrine that (according to Burns) " Sends 
one to heaven and ten to hell," and all for " God's Glory?" 

The Nirvana of Buddhism, with its eternal and peaceful 
slumber, is a transcendingly more comforting belief. 

Rev. W. S. Rainsford, D. D., of New York City, says: 
" I would rather believe in annihilation than eternal punish- 
ment. The latter is damnable." 

" I would rather know that all the earth 
That every source of joy, of love or mirth, 
And every thing of life, that loved the light, 
Would sleep forever in eternal night, 
Than think one soul on which the light of reason fell, 
Should suffer torment in a Christian hell." 

Prof. Haeckel says : " The idea that a conviction of per- 
sonal immortality has a specially ennobling influence on the 
moral nature of man is not confirmed by the gruesome history 
of medieval morals." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, says : "Nothing is 
more common than for men to talk as if the idea of immortality 
had always been a source of comfort to mankind. But, so far 
as comfort is concerned, humanity would have been much 
better off without it. . . To discourage thought, to encour- 
age general immorality, was the natural operation of the idea 
of a future life, as cherished throughout Christendom. . . 
Never has civilized society attained to lower depths of degra- 
dation than in those Christian centuries when the felicities of 
heaven and the agonies of hell were no mere figures of rhet- 
oric, but were felt to be as real as the tortures of the Inquisi- 
tion. . . The hope of heaven or fear of hell withholds no 
dagger from its work, palsies no arm upraised to shoot a foe, 
quenches no flame of lawless passion, arrests no hand intent to 
forge or steal, keeps back no slander of the innocent and 
chokes no conscious villain with his perjury. . . It would 
seem that every thoughtful person must, at one time or an- 
other, in these later times, have thought, with painful earnest- 
ness, how different might have been this earth-bound world, 



250 IMMORTALITY. 

if all, or even half, of the intellectual and emotional energy 
that has been spent upon another life had been spent on 
this. Why, in that case we should have had a real heaven 
here. . . A salvation for the present life, in contradistinc- 
tion from the popular salvation — from the penal tortures of a 
state beyond the grave — is a salvation infinitely greater than 
that of the great leading sects of Christendom ; a salvation 
now arid here. . . Now is the judgment of this world and 
we propose to do what seems best now a?id here. . . Let 
those who will, fling off their hats for the expounders of the 
creed of other worldliness, but be it our task and joy to set our 
faces, as a flint, against these things and by speech and pen 
and life to counteract, as far as in us lies, their baneful in- 
fluence." 

There are but comparatively few unbiased thinkers who be- 
lieve in the doctrine of immortality, and the number of those 
so believing is steadily diminishing. 

At a recent gathering in Germany, consisting of seven hun- 
dred scientists, not one of that number believed in immortality. 

It is claimed that because man has a hope of a blissful future 
life, therefore such life is assured. If hopes were, then, realiza- 
tions, we would be surfeited with the realizations of the heart's 
desires ; but we know, from the constant disappointments 
which our hopes experience, that this claim is most illusory. 

John Stuart Mill says : ' ' The desire for future life is no more 
an argument that there will be a future life than is the desire 
for food an argument that we shall be fed in a future life." 

Another claim is that because immortality has been a belief 
in almost every past age, therefore we should give credence to 
it now. In past ages there were believers in the fables of the 
Bible, in witchcraft, in demonism, in a false Astronomy, geol- 
ogy and biology. If the argument that immortality must be 
true because of its having had believers in the days of antiquity, 
then, by a parity of reason, we should still believe in the effete 
tenets and pseudo-science of ancient times. 

While scholars, thinkers, scientists, reject the doctrine of 
immortality, as not being probable or even, perhaps, possible, 



IMMORTALITY. 251 

for the want of satisfactory evidence, there is a natural, even if 
unreasonable, longing of the heart to again meet with those 
dear ones who have been snatched from our embrace by the 
rude and unsympathetic hand of death. Something of this 
yearning is expressed in words, the beauty and pathos and 
sublimity of which has, probably, no parallel in the English or 
any other language, viz. : "The idea of immortality, that like 
a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its count- 
less waves of hope and fear beating against the shores and 
rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any 
creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, 
and it will continue to ebb and flow, beneath the mists and 
clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of 
death. It is the rainbow — Hope, shining upon the tears of 
grief." — Col. Robert G. Ingersoll. 

But there is an immortality for great thoughts, for good 
deeds, for noble aspirations, for heroism, for philanthropic and 
beneficent acts ; and there is an immortality for the names of 
those who have done what they could to encourage whatever 
tended to make the human family wiser and better, to encour- 
age whatever contributed to the intellectual development, to 
the material prosperity and to the general happiness of man- 
kind. There is, indeed, immortality for 

"those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence ; live 
In pulses stirred to generosity, 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
Of miserable aims that end in self; 
In thoughts sublime, that pierce the night like stars, 
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds 
To vaster issues 

This is the life to come." 

And in this "life to come" will be perpetuated the achieve- 
ments, and the names, of such benefactors of the race as Bruno, 
Shakespeare, Gibbon, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Voltaire, 
Paine and Ingersoll. 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

THERE is no more patent fact observable than that a 
great change has come over the " Spirit" of the Chris- 
tian Church within the past half century, with reference to 
its beliefs and its tolerance of the opinions of others. 

It (the church) has discovered that Agnosticism, and (what 
the church has inappropriately and with offensive intent 
termed) Infidelity, are merely expressions of honest opinions 
on the part of others, and that such opinions are entitled to 
consideration and respect. 

It has evinced a disinclination to insist on dogma, a willing- 
ness to investigate and profit by the results of such investiga- 
tion, to accept the discoveries of science, to seek for truth 
(even at the risk of parting with some of its cherished dogmas). 

It has learned to advocate justice in such matters for instance 
as pertain to questions relating to the separation of church and 
state. 

It has also learned that of the writings called the ''gospels," 
instead of their being but four, there were more than a hundred 
times that number, all just as much entitled to the claim ot 
"inspiration" as those attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John. 

It has further learned that a high stage of civilization existed 
long before the time when Adam and Eve were supposed to 
be created. 

It manifests greater interest in the practical, humanitarian 
and ethical questions of the day and correspondingly less in- 
terest in its tenets ; it seems disposed to relinquish its claim 

that morality^xists only in Christianity ; it yields (more or 

(252) 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 253 

less) to the higher criticism " regarding the authorship of the 
Bible and its (dubious) claim for inspiration, and is disposed to 
admit that it (the Bible) is (possibly) contradictory, unreliable 
and (perhaps) immoral ; it shows a tendency to listen to 
the voice of reason and to question that of revelation ; to 
pay more and better attention to the certainties of this life 
and less to the uncertainties (and improbabilities) of another 
life. 

It has its doubts of miracles ; it inclines, more than ever, 
to believe in natural, instead of unnatural, law ; it is question- 
ing the efficacy and the logic of prayer ; it almost universally 
abandons belief in hell ; it queries as to whether heaven is a 
place or a condition ; it questions as to whether God is a 
personality, an immanency or a transcendency. 

It has been, and is, growing daily more rational, more dis- 
posed to accept reality and fact and truth for tradition and 
legend and fable, to regard as allegorical what is improbable 
or impossible ; it rejects belief in the Methuselah and similar 
stories of the prolongation of human life ; it interprets the 
"days" of Genesis as "epochs of time." 

It has learned, that its religion has evolved from anterior 
religions, that all its ceremonies, rites, symbols, customs and 
beliefs are those of more ancient times ; that its god is but 
another name for some one of the divinities before whom the 
adherents of every other religion have bowed down and 
worshiped ; that the deification, immaculate conception, and 
virgin birth of the founder of Christianity has its parallel in 
religions which existed prior to the Christian era, that its 
crucified saviour is but one of sixteen other crucified saviours of 
former ages ; that its doctrine of the Trinity, its belief in 
heaven, in hell, in immortality, in a personal devil, all existed 
in the religions of earlier times. 

It (the Church), in analyzing the genealogy of Christ, dis- 
covers that — if Matthew's and Luke's record be true — there is 
nothing mysterious about the birth of Christ, and that Joseph 
was as truly his father as was Mary his mother. This fact is 
further confirmed by recently discovered writings, such for in- 



254 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

stance, as those written in the Syrian language and found in a 
cloister on Mount Sinai, and which are about to be translated 
into English by Cambridge University. Christians are also 
awakening to the fact that it is impossible for them to find the 
slightest authority for the religious observance of Sunday. 
Bishop Potter of New York — in the Forum for Oct., 1892 — dis- 
tinctly says that there is no warrant for such observance. 
Week after week the clergy of a generation ago preached 
what are known as " doctrinal sermons," but which are now 
scarcely ever heard. The common sense of educated Chris- 
tians is opposed to the improbabilities — the absurdities- — of 
Christian dogma. Rev. Dr. Parkhurst, Presbyterian of New 
York, does not hesitate to pronounce the creed of his church 
"a horrible doctrine." 

The ministry has been forced by the advanced thought of 
both pew and pulpit to select subjects to discourse upon which 
are more in accord with the enlightened ideas which are every- 
where met with outside of church circles. 

The very foundation of Christian faith — the doctrine of ' ' the 
fall of man" is yielding to the newly discovered truth of the 
rise of man, which the theory of evolution is inculcating, and 
which theory — with all its destructive consequences to Chris- 
tian doctrine — is being widely adopted by the clergy and other 
Professors of Christianity and with the abandonment of the 
doctrine of "Original Sin," that of the atonement necessarily 
follows ; for if there be no fall of man — no Original Sin — there 
can be no need of an atonement, there being no act for which 
to atone ; again, many of the clergy, heretofore supposed to 
entertain orthodox views, are now thorough disbelievers in the 
doctrine of hell ; and if there be no hell to be saved from, the 
inquiry naturally suggests itself what significance can there be 
in the word "Salvation," and, further, why, or what can be 
the office — or need of — a Saviour. 

All these Church dogmas are so linked together that if one 
in the chain drops out there is wanting a unity and a strength 
which is essential to the very existence of the Christian religion, 
as a whole. 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 255 

As illustrating and emphasizing and confirming what has 
been said above regarding the spirit of toleration and the 
liberalizing tendency of Christianity the following quotations 
may be adduced : 

The late Bishop Phillips Brooks in his book on Tolerance, 
says : " Tolerance is the willing consent that other men should 
hold and express opinions with which we disagree. . . . 
One of the worst things about /^tolerance is that it puts an end 
to manly controversy. ' ' 

His brother, the Rev. Arthur Brooks, D. D., says : " The 
college must be open to men who say daring things. . . . 
The faculty should not tell a man that he must go out as soon 
as he begins to think." 

Bishop Potter says : "We want defenders of the Church's 
liberty as well as of the Church's orthodoxy." 

Rev. James Freeman Clarke says : ' ' The time has come 
when Unitarians and Universalists can no longer monopolize 
the title of liberal and rational Christians. . . . There are- 
many hopeful signs of progress and improvement in the Chris- 
tian Church. In New York, for example, appear every week 
two newspapers, the Independent and the Christian Union, 
both nominally orthodox, edited in the interest of a free, broad, 
practical and generous Christianity." 

Rev. H. W. Mabie, of the Outlook, says : " Religious ques- 
tions press for answer on all sides. The part of leadership is 
resolutely to treat the new inquiries, not as evidence of the 
prevalence of sin, but as signs of a quickening of life . 
to look for re-statements and re-adjustments. ' ' 

Rev. Francis Brown, Professor in the Presbyterian The- 
ological Seminary at New York says : " It is a great pity to be 
afraid of facts," and makes admissions, which, " but a short 
time before, would have filled orthodoxy with horror." 

The eminent English divine, Rev. Dr. Mills, calls attention 
to the now undoubted and long suspected fact that " it pleased 
the divine power to reveal some of the most important articles 
of our Catholic creed first to the Zoroasterians." 

Hue and Gabert, French priests (in disguise) penetrated to 



256 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

the interior of China and brought to the world's notice an 
amazing similarity of ideas, institutions, observances, cere- 
monies, ritual, and ecclesiastical costumes of the Buddhists to 
those of his own Church. 

Rev. Dr. Briggs says : " I rejoice at this age of rationalism, 
with all its wonderful achievements in philosophy. . . . In- 
vestigation must go on. It matters little how many oppose it. 
It may delay the end, it cannot prevent it. It may make in- 
vestigation a holy war and the establishment of its results a 
catastrophe to the faith and life of its opponents, but the normal 
development of investigation is the calm, steady, invincible 
march of science." 

The Sunday Oregonian says, with reference to Professor 
Briggs criticism of the Bible : " It is imposible to stay the tide. 
Men, in increasing numbers, insist on treating religion ra- 
tionally, or dealing with the Bible on ordinary principles of 
literary interpretation. More and more it is coming to be un- 
derstood that the whole history of man is regular and orderly, 
without special revelations, without miraculous interpolations, 
of divine Providence. The thought of our time is rapidly 
clearing religion of the crudities it borrowed from those ages 
in which there was no scientific observation." 

Rev. Dr. R. Heber Newton says : " No man can be found, 
who thinks at all, who is not heretical upon some point of the 
Westminster confession. These grounds of faith Dr. Briggs 
has pluckily and ably contested. . . . Heresy hunters as 
a rule, are not disarmed by the force of reasoning. They are 
hardened, not softened, by the warm light of truth. They are 
not more inclined toward peace when they discover their 
mistakes, but are often made the madder thereby. . . . New 
found knowledge compel the re-study of the dogmas and in- 
stitutions of the church in the light of historic criticism and 
comparative religion. . . . Reason must be the bed-rock 
of our faith, and Bible and Church alike rest on it. Only by 
reason can records of revelation and Church philosophies be 
tested satisfactorily. ' ' 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 257 

" Iii the religion of the future there will be no orthodoxy 
and no heresy." — Rev. M. J. Savage. 

The late Rev. Dr. Philip SchafT pronounces heresy trials, in 
the present day, anachronisms. 

Rabbi Schaufarber of Baltimore, says : ' ' We have lived in 
the past long enough. It is time that we be of the present. 
Too long has Biblical authority been placed above scientific 
truth." 

Rev, Dr. Rylance, of St. Mark's church, N. Y., says : "We 
shall have Ingersolls, with their denunciations of the Bible, as 
long as our preachers and teachers so generally make a fetich 
of the book ; till they can cease from sanctioning the silly no- 
tion of what they call ' plenary ' or ' verbal ' inspiration ; till 
they perceive that it contains some things that belong to the 
moral infancy of mankind, which the Christian intelligence and 
conscience cannot approve." 

Rev. Dr. S. D. McConnell, Rector of St. Stephen's church, 
Philadelphia, argues that ' ' people no longer believe the Bible 
to be a transcript of God's revelation Discredit is thrown on 
the theory of a literal inspiration by the investigations and dis- 
coveries of modern scholars." 

Dr. Harper, President of the great Baptist University at Chi- 
cago, denounces the Bible as full of errors. 

The Hulsean Professor of Divinity at the University of Cam- 
bridge declares : "No attempt at reconciling Genesis with the 
exacting requirements of modern science has ever been known 
to succeed without entailing a degree of special pleading or 
forced interpretation, to which, in such a question, we should 
be wise to have no recourse." 

John Wm. Colenso, late Bishop of Natal, in translating the 
book of Genesis, says : ' ' Is all that true ? . . . Shall a 
man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? I dare not do so. 
. . . Would it not be well to eliminate from the Bible what- 
ever is untruthful and immoral ? " 

Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks, of Boston, says: "The higher 
criticism is as distinctly a new science as modern chemistry and 



258 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

to appeal from it to tradition is to appeal from knowledge to 
hearsay. ' ' 

Rev. Dr. Chas. C. Tiffany, of N. Y., says : " I would not 
be in favor of dismissing a Professor, who has ideas out of the 
common run, on the plea that anything of that kind would be 
hurtful to the student. . . . There will always be new 
ideas. ' ' 

' ' It is a shame for the Presbyterian or any other church to 
shut a man's mouth by force or by ballot." — (Rev. J. E. Sertz.) 
" We cannot stifle free thought and candid criticism." — (Rev. 
Jas. Hoadley.) 

Rev. C. D. Bartol, in the New World of March, 1893, sa ys : 
" The breaking up of sects before the light of knowledge, as 
of ice-bound streams under the rays of the sun, proves our in- 
ability to judge where it will stop. Orthodoxy, Episcopacy, 
the Presbytery and Catholicity — so called — cannot withstand 
the intellectual flow, by which they are all shaken and r^nt. 

"The old time churchman hated to challenge belief: the mod- 
ern liberal churchman halts the old creeds to see if they square 
with modern religious consciousness. ' ' 

Professor St. George Mivart says : " Religion is worth noth- 
ing in my eyes, as a mere sentiment or taste, unsupported by 
calm and solemn reason." 

Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher thus protests against continued 
belief in an effete theology : ' ' During the whole course of 
seven years study, the Protestant candidate for the ministry 
sees before him an unauthorized statement — spiked down and 
stereotyped — of what he must find in the Bible, or be martyred. 
. . . Liberty of opinion, in our theological seminaries, is a 
mere form." 

Rev. Dr. George H. Hepworth (in the N. Y. Herald of 
Sept. 22, '95,) says: "Men are thinking along new lines, 
while the Church still thinks along the old lines. We have 
very little regard for theological dogmas. . . . The world 
has an increasing distrust of the efficacy of religious forms and 
ceremonials and creeds." 

Rev. Edward Everitt Hale thus criticises the bigotry and 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 259 

hyprocrisy of the different Christian churches : " What is the 
moral attitude of a church which deliberately says that certain 
lines of inquiry shall not be pursued? What is the attitude of 
the Roman church which publishes a list of books which shall 
not be read? What is the attitude of the Methodist church 
which has been turning professors out of its southern colleges 
because they assented to the doctrine of evolution ? What is 
the attitude of the Episcopal church, which, while it claims all 
the advantages of a creed, offers you two and tells you that 
you may pick and choose ? We can understand the position 
of a church which binds no man to a written creed." 

Rev. E. P. Powell (in the Arena, Nov., 1893,) savs : " The 
1 age of reason ' grows mild and mellow in the light of con- 
troversies which now agitate theology." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, says : " Certainly I 
am not a Christian, if in order to be one, it is necessary to 
swallow a prescribed dose of beliefs, the ingredients of which 
have not been, and cannot be, analyzed." 

In the Arena, for September, 1895, Rev. Charles Strong, 
D. D., of Melbourne, says: "Doubt the infallibility of the 
story of creation and what becomes of the popular doctrine of 
the fall of man, and the vast superstructure raised on this story 
by theologians. Take away the eternal hell to which the whole 
human race is (supposed to be) naturally doomed and the whole 
system crumbles into dust. To try to reconcile it with the 
modern study of history, the teachings of science or the new 
ideal, is like trying to reconcile the Ptolematic with the 
Copernican theory of the solar system. 

The popular theology depends upon the hypothesis of an 
absolutely infallible church — or book, which — as far as we can 
see is swept clean away by a knowledge of facts. ' ' 

Rev. Samuel R. Calthrop says: "The fall of man is the 
foundation of theology ; for had there been no fall, there 
would have been no redemption ; if no redemption, then no 
Christ, no death on the cross, no resurrection, no atonement, 
and no salvation by belief in such atonement." 

Huxley says : "If the story of the fall is not the true re- 



26o LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

cord of an historical occurrence, what becomes of Pauline 
theology ? ' ' 

Rev. Alfred Momerie, (an English clergyman) says : " I am 
bound to believe that there are men . . . who, with no 
conscious faith in God, are yet living noble, useful, self-deny- 
ing lives ; spending and being spent for others ; taking the 
most enthusiastic interest in all that concerns the well being of 
their fellow men. ' ' 

Rev. R. S. Mc Arthur, D. D., of N. Y. City, says: "A 
great change within the past few years has come over the 
spirit and methods of our churches. This change has been 
gradual in its approach, but none the less significant in its 
reality, the pulpit now, as perhaps never before, believes in 
and illustrates the value of applied Christianity. True Chris- 
tians show their Christianity, not so much by professing an 
orthodox creed, as by living pure, unselfish, patriotic and 
godly lives." 

Rev. David H. Greer, D. D., of N. Y., says: "There 
certainly is a strong tendency upon the part of the church 
to-day to emphasize conduct rather than dogma. 
With this tendency I am in full sympathy and regard it as one 
of the hopeful signs of the times that it is asserting itself so 
strongly. ' ' 

Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., says : " Men are born nominal 
Christians. The truth of the religion is taken for granted, 
nothing leads them to question or examine it. . . . In 
the matter of evidences of Christianity we should hold our- 
selves in the position of an impartial jury. ... I believe 
in no religion that is not supported by historical proof." 

The late Dr. McCosh (President of Princeton College) says : 
" People must judge of a supposed scientific theory, not from 
the faith or unbelief of its discoverer, but from the evidences in 
its behalf." 

Benjamin Kidd, in his Social Evolution, says : " Within the 
churches one of the signs of change is visible in a growing tend- 
ency to assert that religion is concerned with man's actual 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 261 

state in this world, as well as with his possible state in the 
next." 

On all sides there is evidently a disposition to loosen the 
bonds of creed and unlock the shackles of dogma." — N. Y. 
Advertiser. 

Rev. Dr. Austin Phelps, of Andover, says : "Modern in- 
fidelity is an intellectual giant, in comparison with anything in 
the records of the past. It is learned in resources, well in- 
formed in Christian argument, self-possessed and withal morally 
earnest in spirit. . . . It is time to cease confounding In- 
fidelity with depravity. We should have done with the stories 
of infidel death-beds. For the purpose for which they are 
commonly used all pith has been taken out of them by the 
testimony of intelligent physicians." 

Rev. E. P. Foster {Arena, Oct. 1891) says : " It is ten thou- 
sand times better, yea, ten thousand times ten thousand, to be 
an honest Infidel than a hypocritical believer." 

Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage makes the following admis- 
sions : " It is easy to have one's faith destroyed. I can give 
you a receipt for it. Read infidel books ; have long and fre- 
quent conversations with sceptics ; attend the lectures of those 
antagonistic to religion. It is easy to banish soon and forever 
all respect for the Bible. I prove by the fact that so many 
have done it." 

In the Fomm for June, 1892, is an article by President Hyde, 
of Bowdoin College, entitled, " Impending Paganism in New 
England," giving statistics showing great falling off of church 
attendance and adding, " Financially the churches are on the 
verge of bankruptcy. The church is supported principally by 
a club of women, not by families and men." 

In New York city not one-half of the churches exist to- 
day — in proportion to population — that existed fifty years 
ago. The annual gain in membership is but a little over 1 
per cent, and of this not one-quarter are males. 

Rev. W. S. Rainsford, Rector of St. George's Episcopal 
church, New York City, says : "It is generally recognized 
now that the proper work of the church is not to defend dogma, 



262 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

but to lay down, as a basis of man's society, friendship, 
sympathy and love." 

Dr. Rainsford also rebukes those who dishonestly represent 
the strength of the Christian church, thus : " I know the census 
and the figures which show the increase of church attendance, 
during the past ten or fifteen years, but the common people 
are getting further and further away from the church. Hundreds 
of thousands who never darken the doors of a church are set 
down as church members. 

' ' In the census returns many persons are counted over and 
over again. I myself know one man who is set down as an 
attendant by seven different churches. ' ' 

Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll, of the British Weekly, says : 
"The pleasant fiction that church members do not go to the 
theatre can no longer be kept up." 

Farrar's Ci'itical History of Free Thought, embracing his 
eight Bampton lectures delivered in 1862, is an interesting ac- 
count of what he speaks of as "the struggle of the human 
spirit to free itself from the authority of the Christian faith." 
He says : ' ' Bigotry is founded on ignorance and fear. . . . 
We stand in the presence of forms of doubt which press us 
more nearly than those of former times. . . . When the 
church has attempted to fetter human thought, it has been to 
free thought that we owe the emancipation of the human 
mind. . . . Doubt is reawakened by the introduction of 
new forms of knowledge. . . . The controversy with her- 
esy or unbelief has caused truths to be perceived explicitly. 
. . . The use of doubt is to test all beliefs. . . . The 
unbelief of the present day is marked by a show of fairness." 

Since these lectures were delivered, the Archdeacon has 
still further advanced in liberal thought and bold utterance, so 
much so as to expose himself to the wrath of the orthodox ; 
and which has elicited from him such defiant language as that 
"no amount of theological hatred, no fear of persecution 
and no hope of reward will ever make me deflect the tenth 
part of an inch from the statement of anything which I hold to 
be true." 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 263 

The Archdeacon in speaking of Calvinism says its dogmas 
are met by the " execrations of mankind." 

Rev. T. P. Sawin, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church 
of Troy, N. Y., says : " I do not wish to be known as a Calvin- 
ist. I do not like the idea of Calvinism. Calvin was a 
murderer and a scoundrel." 

Rev. Dr. Tyler says : " A Christianity that is so intent on 
saving the soul from a burning bottomless hell, as to forget 
or be indifferent to the physical discomfort and sufferings of 
men, is not, whatever else it may be, the Christianity of Christ." 

Rev. John Rippere (Methodist) of Brooklyn, says : " If the 
standards of the Methodist Church are right, nine-tenths of 
the members are going to hell." 

Bishop Foster says : " If I was compelled to think my God, 
whom I worship, would, by any possible method of administra- 
tion, send down to a hopeless eternity twelve hundred millions 
of my brethren and save a few of us, who are but a little better, 
perhaps, in our moral fiber, I would not go to heaven if I could. 
I would not worship such a God as that. I would join all the 
hosts of hell in rebellion against such a God." 

Rev. Dr. Rossitter W. Raymond says: "I am sick and 
tired of going to the American Board on sufferance to aid in 
supporting missionaries who believe out and out in the damna- 
tion of all the heathen. ... I am tired of the whole miser- 
able humbug. . . . I won't let the damnation doctrine be 
disseminated with my money. . . . It is my Christian duty 
not to give to any concern that teaches the heathen that their 
fathers went to hell." 

For many years Congress appropriated money, for the 
religious teaching of the Indians, to the various Christian sects, 
(more than two millions of dollars in nine years). As an in- 
dication of the advance of justice in the church, it may be 
stated that one by one the Protestant churches have refused to 
accept their share of the apportionment. 

The wrong of compelling support to the churches has been 
widely rebuked by justice-loving Christians and others. 

Rev. Dr. Hawthorne, of Atlanta, Ga., expressed himself in 



264 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

unqualified language against appropriations of money for re- 
ligious purposes, against exempting church property from 
taxation, against the employment of chaplains by the govern- 
ment, speaking of them as violations " of the laws of religious 
liberty, because it compels the Jew, the Atheist, and the Deist 
to contribute to the support of a religion which they repudiate. " 
Dr. Hawthorne also denounces the movement to secure the 
Christianization of the Constitution and the acts of the Ameri- 
can Protective Association. 

Rabbi Caro of Milwaukee says: "As a check upon Ec- 
clesiasticism, I am for the taxation of all church property. The 
state has no right to tax one man for the purpose of propaga- 
ting another man's religion." 

Rev. E. D. Huntley, Rev. James Churm, Rev. Herman 
Burns, Rev. C. S. Haack and others of the Milwaukee clergy 
have expressed views similar to those of Rabbi Caro. 

' ' The Ministers' Association of the United Presb) Lerian 
Church, -at their October meeting in Pittsburg, debated the 
question of church exemption from taxation and decided that 
such exemption is wrong." — Truth Seeker, Dec. 8, 1894. 

Our Sunday laws are meeting the righteous condemnation 
of the generous hearted and liberal minded of the Christian 
church. 

The N. Y. Examiner (Baptist), alluding to the imprisonment 
of reputable citizens in Tennessee and in Maryland by reason 
of their (infamous) Sunday laws — in the one case for working 
in the fields and in the other for husking corn in a barn, on 
Sunday, says, " We wonder that the stones do not cry out 
against such travesties of justice and that Christian men do not 
lift up their voices in protest against this wicked perversion of 
religion ; this insult to the name of Christ." 

Rev. Dr. Rylance speaks of the ' ' traditions and dogmas 
touching the Sabbath once believed to be direct and un- 
questionably from God, but now discredited in the estimation 
of all men who know what they are talking about." 

The Sunday newspaper is now being encouraged and utilized 
for the dissemination of rc<w-sectarian and rctfrc-doctrinal re- 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 265 

ligion, by the "Newspaper Sermon Association," a Massa- 
chusetts corporation, controlled by Christian clergymen. 

The Christian church teaches that there are but four gospels, 
but Dean Alford says : ' ' There are more than five hundred 
of these manuscripts, of various ages, from the fourth to the 
fifteenth century." 

Andrew D. White, LL. D., late president of Cornell Uni- 
versity, says : " The civilization of Egypt began earlier than 
the time assigned for the creation of man," and in Popular 
Science Monthly for Aug., 1895, shows the advance made in this 
century (mostly in the last half of it) in liberal thought among 
the clergy of Germany, Holland and England. In the latter 
country the struggle for broader church views (as against the 
traditional religion) led by Reverend Drs. Temple, Jowett, 
Rowland, Williams, Baden Powell, H. B. Wilson, Mark Pat- 
tison, Bishops Tait and Thirlwall and Lord High Chancellor 
Westbury, was successful to a most encouraging degree. An 
epitaph on the latter reads: "He abolished . . . the 
eternity of punishment. He dismissed hell with costs, and 
took away from orthodox members of the Church of England 
their last hope of everlasting damnation." 

In the Sept. No. of Popular Science Monthly, Dr. White 
calls attention to the "higher criticism," as indulged in a 
generation ago — "then so daring ; now so widepread " — and 
beginning with Bishop Colenso and the result of his studies of 
the Old Testament and his discovery that "in all the books 
there is much that is mythical and legendary," Dr. White 
shows what has been accomplished toward the emancipation of 
thought in the church by the bold utterances of such biblical 
scholars as Kuenan, Wellhausen, Robertson Smith, Professors 
Sanday, Driver, Chayne and Saml. Davidson, and by the 
authors of Lux Mundi, who were forced to admit that all ac- 
counts, in the Hebrew scriptures, of events before the time of 
Abraham are unhistorical. 

In Popular Science Monthly for Oct., 1895, Dr. White shows, 
by the researches of such eminent Biblical scholars as Layard, 
Bottor, Sayce, Oppert and George Smith, that " it is revealed 



266 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

beyond the possibility of doubt, that the accounts of creation, 
the tree of life in Eden, the institution of the Sabbath, the 
deluge, the Tower of Babel and much else in the Pentateuch, 
were simply an evolution out of earlier myths, legends and 
chronicles." 

While forty years ago great scholars were four to one in 
favor of, they are now two to one against, the claim that John 
wrote this (the fourth) gospel. Beliefs formerly thought 
fundamental to Christianity, are simply based on ancient 
myths. Vast masses of legend, marvel and dogmatic assertion, 
have been dissolving quietly away like icebergs drifted into the 
Gulf Stream. The first three gospels are neither independent 
of each other, nor in that sort of agreement which was formerly 
asserted. The fourth gospel is mainly due to some gifted 
representative of the "Alexandrian School." Dr. White has 
done immense service to the seekers after truth in tracing in 
his New Chapters in the Warfare of Science, the struggle 
which the liberal minded and honest churchmen have had in 
their efforts to give to Christianity the benefits of a reasonable, 
instead of an unbelievable theology. 

A great victory for toleration and religious liberty has re- 
cently been won in Austria-Hungary, through the persistent 
efforts of Dr. Wekelie, the Hungarian prime minister, in secur- 
ing a separation of Church and State in Hungary. 

What is known as the Tubingen School of Theology has 
driven from Germany almost every phase of orthodox belief 
and is influencing other (nominally) Christian countries in a 
constantly increasing degree. 

Rev, Moritz Schwalb, a Protestant clergyman of Berlin, is 
the author of a book called Is fesus the Redeemer? in which 
he endeavors to show that Jesus was not the Saviour. 

Goldwin Smith, D. C.L., LL. D., in A T orth American Review 
for Aug., 1895, p. 230, says : " No one who reads and thinks 
freely can doubt that the cosmogonical and historical founda- 
tions of traditional belief have been sapped by science and 
criticism. When the crust shall fall in appears to be only a 
question of time. 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 267 

''Ominous symptoms already appear. Almost all the 
churches have trouble with heterodoxy and are trying clergy- 
men for heresy. Quite as significant seems the growing 
tendency of the pulpit to concern itself less with religious 
dogma and more with the estate of man in his present world. 

" It is needless to say what voices of unbelief, outside the 
churches are heard and how high are the intellectual quar- 
ters from which they come. 

11 Faith in the dogmatic creed is waxing faint." 

Dr. Paul Carus says : ' ' The churches, especially the Ameri- 
can churches, are not as conservative and stationary as their 
dogmas pretend to be. Almost all our churches have, during 
the last two decades, grown immensely in depth and catholicity. 
There is a very strong tendency among them to get rid of 
sectarian narrowness and dogmatic crudities." 

" Religion is losing its hold upon the life and thought of the 
people." — Rev. G. Monroe Royce, Forum, January, 1894. 

Rev. Jesse S. Gilbert (in the Michigan Advocate) says : 
11 The kingdom of heaven is no longer stormed with prayers, 
tears and strong cries, as though to be taken by very force. 
. . . The decay of the emotional is seen in all the after 
phases of Christian life. The 'amen' corner has fallen into 
1 innocuous desuetude.' The class room is well nigh deserted. 
Preaching is largely apologetic. . . . The subtle spirit of 
doubt, with which the very air seems charged, and which so 
largely permeates modern literature, has weakened the faith of 
many." 

" The religious world is weary of the husks of creed and 
dogma." — (B. O. Flower.) 

" Religion is vanishing from nearly every part of the world." 
—(Dr. McGlynn.) 

" There is a tendency towards unhampered search for truth, 
investigation of all creeds, the casting off of customs that rest 
on no better ground than tradition. The church feels this 
modern spirit and in consequence is asking whether a great 
deal that used to be thought religious may not have been 
merely superstitious." — N. Y. Press y January 12, 1894. 



268 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

" Faith should be scientific and rational, rather than scrip- 
tural."— (Rev. Elbert G. Smith, of Andover.) 

The congress of religions held in Chicago in 1893 con- 
tributed largely to efface sectarian lines and to cause a recogni- 
tion of the brotherhood of the race. 

Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., says: "It was indeed a sight 
never before witnessed, a hopeful sign of the growing love of 
man to man, to see representatives of all faiths sitting together, 
courteously and candidly listening to the story of each others' 
beliefs. Day after day I listened to these preachers, new and 
strange ; the Parsee telling how the great Zoroaster found the 
one God, whose emblem is the ever burning fire ; the Hindu 
and his striving for the infinite ; the Buddhist of gentleness and 
brotherly love ; the Catholic, the Protestant, the Liberal ; the 
unifying thread, the note that blended all into harmony, the 
common ground, where all stood and which drew heart to 
heart, was emphasized as never before in the history of the 
world." 

This spirit was further illustrated by Rev. George D. Board- 
man, D. D., LL. D., in quoting the following lines : 

"I will not ask my neighbor of his creed, 

Nor what he deems of doctrine old or new. 
I ask not by what name — among the rest 

That Christians go by — he is named or known ; 
Whether his faith has been 'professed,' 

Or whether proven by his deeds alone, 
I find in him discipleship so true, 

So full, that nothing further I demand ; 
He may be bondman, freeman, gentile, Jew, 

But we are brothers — walk we hand in hand." 

As evidence of greater tolerance now than formerly, is the 
fact that Mozoomdar, the Brahmin priest, participated in the 
services held in " All Soul : " (a Christian) church. 

Principal Grant (Presbyterian) of Kingston, Ontario, says : 
" The people are beginning to care less and less for contro- 
versial divinity. Science is marching on irresistibly ; there is 
no sectarianism in science. There can be none, because reason 
is one." 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 269 

Rev. Dr. Burwash, President of Victoria College, says : 
11 Has it come to this — that our creeds are more precious than 
truth ; that we must shut our eyes, lest the blazing light of the 
nineteenth century should reveal some imperfection in the 
form, or even in the matter of our historic creeds? " 

Even so radically orthodox a preacher as Rev. Francis L. 
Patton, D. D., President of Princeton University, says that all 
religions proceed from the same hypothesis and that all teach 
the same morality, adding, ' ' There is no difference between 
Christianity and other religions — it is but a difference of de- 
gree." 

Rev. O. Frothingham says : " Every form of religion must 
give way to the religion which consults human weal." 

Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott says : "All scientific men now ac- 
cept — or assume as true — the doctrine of evolution, which has 
given us a new philosophy, a new biology, a new sociology, a 
new astronomy, a new geology. It will not finish its work 
until it has given us a new theology." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : "There has not been a time, 
for fifteen hundred years, when so much of the sphere of reli- 
gious opinion — which ages past have revered — has fallen into 
desuetude and disrespect as our own. 

1 ' I have not the least idea that our popular Christianity is 
going to be the religion of the future." 

Rev. Dr. Gulliver, of Phillip's Academy, says: "Every 
science, every philosophy, every theology, is to enter the 
twentieth century regenerated and reconstructed." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton sayj : "There will be greater 
changes in the world before the end of our century than there 
have been at any other time since the advent of Christ." 

Rev. Frank E. Mason, of Brooklyn, says : " That the doc- 
trines of Christianity are irrational, untenable and enervating 
is only too apparent to those who have eyes to see and ears to 
hear. . . . Robert Ingersoll is an. iconoclast, second to 
none the world has ever produced, and the spirit which ani- 
mates his words will breathe into the nostrils of man the breath 



270 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

of a higher life, which can but result in the uplifting of the 
race. He is a heretic — the champion heretic of the age — 
and to his credit do we thus denominate him, for without 
heretics the world would become fossilized. Mr. Ingersoll 
belongs to this age. He is a production of the nineteenth 
century and could no more help coming than could the tele- 
phone or phonograph, which are both the property of current 
thought. . . . He is the animating embodiment of the en- 
franchising thought, which lifts man from a serf, to a sovereign 
of the universe. . . . The growing liberality of ages has 
in the nineteenth century become strong enough to centralize 
itself in man, and in Robert Ingersoll we see the type of man 
as he will be when enfranchised from the thraldom of religious 
superstition and creedal speculation. ... As heterodox 
and radical as is Mr. Ingersoll to this age, it will not be long 
before his teachings will be orthodoxical. " 

The scenes which have been portrayed above and the opin- 
ions which have been here expressed, bring to mind the words 
of Thomas Moore : 

"Shall I ask the brave soldier, who stood" by my side 
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds disagree? 
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried 
If he kneel not before the same altar with me ? 
From the heretic girl of my soul shall I fly, 
And seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss ? 
Perish the heart and the law that would try 
Truth, valor and love by a standard like this!" 

The foregoing quotations are a few of many others which 
could be cited as indicating the determination which exists 
(even among those who still cling to the forms of the religion 
in which they were educated) to throw off the fetters with 
which impossible dogmas still seek to bind them, and to listen 
to the voice of reason, the lessons of truth, the demonstrations 
of science. 

A revolt against orthodox Christianity, such as never before 
in the history of the church has been observable, is now clearly 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 271 

apparent. It is manifesting itself in every branch of the Chris- 
tian church. The theory of evolution has found advocates in 
Professors Drummond, Woodrow and Winchell, Reverend 
Drs. W. H. H. Ward, Abbott, McCosh and very many other 
professors of orthodox Christianity. 

Union, Lane, Andover, Auburn and other theological semin- 
aries bid defiance to the general assembly of the Presbyterian 
church, which has undertaken to " boycott " the graduates of 
those seminaries. 

Rev. Dr. J. H. Ecoib, in the New World, has the courage, 
the honesty and the good sense to plead for a theological 
university that shall be free from denominational control. 

The Revised Edition of the New Testament (1881) is like- 
wise a valuable contribution to the liberalizing of Christian 
thought, the Revisers having discovered that (among many 
other pious frauds) the word God in i Timothy III. 16, was an 
interpolation; that the verse (1 John v. 7) " There are three 
that bear record . . . "is spurious ; that in Luke II. 33, 
the words " His father" had been fraudulently substituted for 
"Joseph;" and that the language in Mark XVI. 9-20 was 
fabricated. The ministry of the Anglican church, of the 
Episcopal and Baptist churches of this country, have shown 
great independence of their creeds and (though to a lesser ex- 
tent) have also the Methodist and other churches which are 
classed among the orthodox ; while the Unitarian and Universal- 
ist churches have exhibited marked advances, within a genera- 
tion, toward rationalism. 

Colonel Ingersoll was recently a guest at the Unitarian Club 
of New York City and his frank expressions of opinion were 
there greeted with the most hearty applause. 

Rev. Minot J. Savage, of Boston, dispenses, in his pulpit, 
with (futile) prayer. 

Even the Roman Catholic Church is progressing toward un- 
constrained thought, as may be noticed by the utterances of 
Professor St. George Mivart in England, of Professors Ser- 
nonuant and Loisy in France, of Canons Bartolo and Berta in 



272 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

Italy, and of Fathers McGlynn, Burtsell and Ducey in this 
country. 

The great influence of the latter on the Papacy has elicited 
the remark that ' ' where Father Ducey leads, Rome follows. ' ' 
All these, to a greater or lesser degree, accept the developments 
of science, regard the conclusions of modern biblical criticism 
as well founded and show a commendable independence of the 
Church of Rome. 

True, there is an hallucination and hysteria attending re- 
vivals of religion, camp meetings, "Christian Endeavor" 
gatherings, and the "inane vaporings " of such " Evangelists " 
as Dwight L. Moody, Rev. Samuel Jones, Rev. Samuel Small, 
Rev. Joseph Cook, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, — the thirteen- 
year-old-boy pulpiteer of Missouri and the nine - year - old 
colored Baptist girl-preacher of South Carolina (all of whom 
attract large audiences), which have taken possession of the 
minds of unreasoning enthusiasts and deluded zealots, something 
like the (supposed) demoniacal possessions of the days of 
Christ. True, also, that the new "Messiah" of New Mexico 
is now attracting his thousands of equally deluded followers. 
It is also true, as recently stated in the Minneapolis Times, 
that intense religious excitement has produced an " emotional 
insanity," which has resulted in very many persons voluntarily 
beggaring themselves and their families bv giving all they had 
to their church. But the sober sense of thinking people, the 
increasing desire to investigate, to recognize no light but that 
of reason, to dig down to the solid rock of truth and to accept 
no other foundation as a basis for belief, is threatening ec- 
clesiasticism with utter destruction. 

The " Salvation Army" with its display of banners and the 
noise of its music may appeal to the emotional of our nature, 
or perhaps frighten "sinners " to join its ranks, somewhat as 
the Chinese of former days sought to "frighten" their 
enemies with the sound of cymbal and of gong ; but the mighty 
agency of thought will surely triumph over the hosts of irra- 
tional, illogical, unreasoning foes to mental activity and mental 
progress. 



LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 273 

The ''signs of the times" all point to the ushering in of 
that grand day when an arrogant priesthood, a dogmatic 
ministry, a meaningless ritual, an unintelligible creed, an un- 
enlightened faith, a reasonless belief, an obscene and untruth- 
ful Bible, and all of their accompanying errors, superstitions 
and follies, will be relegated to the ignorant past, and when 
the goal of existence will be the attainment of truth. 

"Let truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth 
put to the worst in. free and open encounter ? " — (Milton.) 

"The most indispensable requisite, in regard to religion, 
is that it should be true." — {Siipernatural Religion.} 

11 Search for the truth is the noblest work of man, its publica- 
tion a duty." — (Madame de Stael.) 

"There's naught in age, there's naught in youth 
That's worth the gem which men call truth." 

The irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom in this 
country was fought with determination on both sides, but with 
disaster and overwhelming defeat to that relic of a barbarous 
age — physical slavery, and so there is to-day an irrepressible 
conflict between mental slavery and freedom of thought. So 
long as we can count upon progress, upon increasing in- 
telligence, upon the reign of reason, we may be certain of a 
disastrous and overwhelming defeat of the forces of igno- 
rance and superstition which are arrayed in support of an 
equally barbarous relic of past ages — the slavery of the 
mind. 

Now that the main obstacle to the triumph of free thought 
— the Christian Church — is being largely deserted by those 
who believe that deed is better than creed, that truth is better 
than error, that knowledge is better than ignorance, that 
honest utterance is better than cringing subservience, that per- 
ceptive thought is better than blind faith, that the marvels of 
nature are grander than the miracles of superstition, that truth 
is authority and not that authority is truth, that religion is not 
a dogma, but a life, we may look with confident hope for the 
spread of a new and rational religion, destined before long to 



274 LIBERALIZED CHRISTIANITY. 

become universal — the religion of ethics, of brotherhood and 
of altruism. 

"Dark night of faith, farewell forever, 
Thy palling chains I now dissever ; 
In freedom's sun I'll bask ; 
Oh, what a glorious task ! 

"In truth's fair realm, I'll rear my home 
Beneath the shade of reason's dome ; 
Philosophy ! 'tis thine to tell 
Of every creed and dogma's knell." 



PRAYER. 

" I would prevail, if prayers might prevail." — i Henry vi. 

THE most useless and inconsistent and illogical occupation 
that one can engage in is that of prayer. There is not a 
single reliable record of an answer to prayer in the history of all 
the ages. For centuries the ignorant faith of those wedded to 
religious beliefs has found voice in orisons, which, had there 
been a listening, compassionate Divinity, would have vibrated 
on the ear of such Deity, with presumably welcome results. 
But no answer has ever come from that great storehouse of 
(supposed) beneficence, sympathy and pity. The God of such 
zealots is as deaf to all the prayers of his petitioners as are the 
gods of brass and stone and wood of (what are called) the 
" heathen." 

A single verse (by Charles Stephenson) will illustrate how 
God answers prayer : 

" ' O God, have mercy,' a mother cried, 
As she humbly knelt at the cradle side ; 

1 O God, have mercy and hear my prayer 

And take my babe in thy tender care ; 
The angel of death is in the room 
And is calling aloud for my babe to come ; 

Thou, thou alone, hast power to save ; 

O God, have mercy — 'tis all I crave.' 



A tiny grave, 'neath a willow's shade, 
Telleth the answer the Merciful made. 



Professor Felix Adler says: "To those who bear within 
them the awe-struck sense of the sublimity and mystery that 



276 PRAYER. 

envelops the Infinite Cause of causes — Life of life — prayer is 
an impossibility 

" The moment the Infinite ceases to be invested with human 
personality, though its existence, its height and power and 
glory, be never so real and certain to you, from that moment 
you can no longer use the form of prayer. . . . Hence 
we see why so many persons of the present day have ceased 
to pray. . . . There is no arm stretched out from above 
to intervene in our behalf." 

Colonel Ingersoll asks the question : " Has any blow been 
saved ; has any storm been stopped ; has any pestilence been 
stayed — because of prayer ? ' ' 

1 They have stormed the stars with their passion cry 
For hope or mercy or justice here ; 
Plead that their darlings should never die, 
Plead with many a sob and tear. 

" Folly ! for never an answer came, 

And never an arrow was turned away : 
It sped to its beautiful mark the same 

Whether they prayed or scorned to pray." 

( Kenneth Lamar. ) 

Even Luther has said that " we see by experience that God 
does not take care of the temporal life." 

Rev. R. Heber Newton thus ridicules the unreasonableness, 
the inconsistency, of prayer : " If prayer were always answered, 
its power could then be calculated as is the power of steam or 
electricity. It would be measurable, ponderable, merchanta- 
ble force. Prayer would be an order upon Omnipotence, a 
draft to be duly honored when presented, a faucet opening the 
conduits of force, a wire tapping the battery of the Infinite en- 
ergy. . . . Man has only to wire his orders to heaven 
and supplies are shipped at once." 

Rev. D. Dallinger refused to obey an order of the Arch- 
bishop of York, England, for prayer to stay the ravages of 
smallpox, saying that it would be "mockery," and adding: 
" As smallpox came among us by physical law broken, so will 
it depart by physical law obeyed." 



PRAYER. 277 

Winwood Reade says : " It is as foolish to pray for rain as 
it would be to pray that the sun should set in the middle of 
the day." 

Professor Noah K. Davis, of the University of Virginia, 
says : " To ask in prayer for any change in the order of na- 
ture is to ask for a violation of the law of nature." 

Leslie Stephens says : " We still pray for a fine harvest, but 
we really consult the barometer, and believe more in the 
prophecies of meteorologists than in an answer to our prayers." 

Father McGuire's advice to those contemplating praying for 
rain, was, " Wait till the wind changes ! " 

"The bended knee and lifted hands 
Implore the gods in vain ; 
Not all the priests of all the lands 
E'er brought — or stayed — the rain." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick says : "So long as men believed 
in special providences, there was a premium on poor sanitary 
and social regulations : why dig a drain to hinder typhus, 
when a prayer will keep it off? Why spend money for fire- 
engines, if fire can be checked by repeating the litany and 
penitential prayers (as was claimed by a Boston rector ?) Why 
seek to stay the plague of grasshoppers by rational device, 
when a fast day will procure Almighty interference ? . . . 
Prayer, considered as a petition for miraculous interference, is 
irrational, be the petition for a material or spiritual advan- 
tage." 

Renan says : " Men, nowadays, pray less and less, for they 
know that no prayer was ever effective. " 

George Jacob Holyoke says: " He who thinks the world 
can be put right by prayer, is a fool if he engages in personal 
effort to do it." 

In Tuttle's Ethics of Science (p. 270) it says : "The utter- 
ance of prayer is like the dog baying the moon." 

A writer in the Tweyitieth Century says : " If I can influence 
the Deity of the popular imagination by prayer, I am master 
of the Universe, and God is my subaltern — doing my bid- 
ding. ' ' 



278 PRAYER. 

If there be a personal God (as is claimed by orthodox Chris- 
tianity,) and if He be a merciful being, holding the relation- 
ship to the people of the world which the father of a family 
holds to his children ; and if He be a loving Father (all of 
which is also claimed by Christians,) is it possible that He can 
be apathetic, or insensible to, or unaffected by the pains and 
sorrows and anguish, the sufferings, the trials, the woes, to 
which frail human nature is heir? Can He be indifferent to 
the wails of the widow, the helplessness of the orphan, the 
grief of him, or her, who has parted with wife, or husband, or 
child ? Has He no inclination to stay the havoc of war, to 
arrest the bullet ere it has sped its way to the quivering flesh 
of some doting father, or loving husband, or dutiful son? Is 
he unmoved at the shrieks of the wounded, the moans of the 
dying, who have become victims of some railroad catastrophe ? 
Hundreds of thousands of shipwrecked mariners and passen- 
gers have struggled against the merciless waves — with hope in 
their hearts and prayer on their lips — clinging to their loved 
ones, until, under a sense of helplessness and despondency and 
despair, they sank beneath the cruel waters, to rise no more : 
while the Christian God was utterly heedless to their cries of 
anguish. Hundreds of thousands of those whom lightning 
and tornado and earthquake have visited — many on bended 
knee, in supplication that the impending calamity be stayed — 
have indulged in hope of rescue by an all-powerful and ever- 
loving Being, who proved deaf to all entreaty. 

Pestilence and famine have ravaged and desolated all coun- 
tries, in all ages, decimating populations, and presenting a 
sickening picture of want and wretchedness ; and yet the Om- 
nipresent has, apparently, known nothing of the inflictions of 
these gaunt messengers of horror and ghastliness. 

Prayers have, for centuries, ascended to a supposed justice- 
loving, humane Omniscient ; that the iniquity of slavery, the 
debasement of woman, the wrongs of tyranny, the evil of in- 
temperance, the perniciousness of superstition, may be re- 
dressed ; but all such prayers have been as useless as if ad- 
dressed to the wrong-doers themselves. 



PRAYER. 279 

Prayers, on each side of hostile forces, to the same " God 
of battles," show the absurdity of such prayers. France was 
Catholic and Germany Protestant, but both prayed to the 
same God. He then heard the prayer of the Protestants. At 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, it was the fiend-like voice 
of the adherents of Charles IX to which He gave a willing 
ear. Sometimes He seemed to have favored the followers of 
Catholic Mary and again of Protestant Elizabeth. The pro- 
longation of the " Thirty Years' War," with its accompanying 
horrors, seemed to demonstrate the difficulty which the 
" Ruler of Nations " had in determining to which of the con- 
testants He would award ultimate success. And seven long 
years of carnage and privation seemed requisite for Him to 
decide as to whether the United States of America should be 
the slave of Great Britain or a free and independent nation. 

In our four years of conflict with the slave oligarchy, God 
seems to have had a preference for slavery, and then appar- 
ently changing his mind in favor of freedom, gave final vic- 
tory to the North. Such we must conclude to have been the 
vacillating course of Deity, if indeed there be a Deity. 

Christianity demands that we submit 'to the " powers that 
be. ' ' Also that we should pray for our rulers, but never for 
freedom from rule. 

Lord Sherbrooke asks — "Where has a nation been freed 
by submission and prayer ? " 

Greg, in his Creeds of Christendom, says : " Prayer to be a 
bona fide, effective agent, in obtaining any boon, must oper- 
ate on an impressible and mutable will." 

Henry Wood, in the Arena for January, 1892, says : " In 
view of the immutability of Law, what is the promise of 
prayer? Is not any petition, that would strive to change the 
divine order, superfluous?" 

In Volney's Ruins (p. 85) we read : " Christians have said 
that God is without variableness, and still they pray to Him 
to change." 

Colonel Ingersoll says : "If God is immutable, then all the 



280 PRAYER. 

prayers of all people, in all ages, have been in vain ; if He is 
vacillating, then the attribute of Omniscience must be taken 
from Him." 

To quote Professor Oswald : "Superstition says pray and 
you shall receive. Science says sow and you shall reap." 

To quote Colonel Ingersoll again : " Prayer and miracle 
are twin sisters of superstition. . . . Fear falls upon the 
earth and prays — courage stands erect and thinks." 

Colonel Ingersoll also (conclusively) shows the utter absurd- 
ity of prayer by stating that ' ' chaplains often pray for such 
impossibilities as that wisdom may be given to Congress ! ' ' 

The futility of prayer must be admitted (without hesitation or 
question) by those religionists who are believers in the doctrine 
of predestination. This doctrine and its results, so far as 
relates to prayer, are clearly set forth by an article in the 
Presbyteria?i of Nashville, Tenn., viz. : "The doctrine that 
God, from all eternity, foreordained what comes to pass and 
thus shut Himself up to one way of doing things, limiting His 
present sovereignty by His eternal decree, seems rather a dis- 
couragement than an incentive to prayer. If things were un- 
changeably fixed a cycle of millions of years before we were 
born, they are past praying for ■." 

Christians pray to Jesus, and yet the prayer of Jesus himself 
(when on earth) was unheeded. He prayed that the cup of 
bitterness, which his enemies held to his lips, might pass from 
him ; but even his prayer availed not. 

In the August number for 1894 of the Freethought Magazine, 
a correspondent gives an account of a supposed conversation 
between Rev. Moses Collect and Mr. Fullmind, in the village 

of Harmony, where Mr. F after paraphrasing one of the 

Christian doxologies, so as to conform to the evolution theory, 
thus: "Praise bud, from whom all blossoms flow," — said that 
' ' prayer was the act of teasing a suppositious being for a 
hypothetical and unmerited advantage over one's fellows;" 
and which definition of prayer was so true to fact that it met 
with the cordial approval of " Dominie Collect." 



PRAYER. 28l 

In the Freethought Magazine for Sep. ' 94, is an article by Eliza 
Mowry Bliven, in which she shows how prayer retards progress, 
by the reliance which religious people place on prayer ; such 
retarding of progress being in exact proportion to the faith in, 
and reliance upon, prayer, which the person who prays pos- 
sesses. Surely, if people believe that some superior power 
would accomplish for them what they desired, there would be 
an absence of stimulus to exertion on their part ; therefore be- 
lief in the efficacy of prayer tends to restrain efforts to prosecute 
undertakings, which all thoughtful, practical persons know 
must be carried on without the slightest aid from any superior 
or supernatural power. If those who pray " Give us this day 
our daily bread," really believe in actual answers to such pray- 
ers, the millions of Christian toilers in the world would sit 
quietly and complacently by, trusting, with the most abiding 
confidence, in the assurance of Christ himself that they need 
take " no thought for their lives, what they shall eat or what 
they shall drink, nor for their bodies, what they shall put on." 
The fact that all who pray for daily sustenance are constantly 
engaged in some bread-winning work, proves their insincerity 
— their hypocrisy. 

Professor Draper has drawn a contrast between the Christians 
and the Moors, of the middle ages, showing the cleanliness, 
order, learning and refinement of the latter and the reverse of 
these accomplishments or practices, owing to superstition, 
bigotry, ignorance and cruelty, of the former, and adds : 
11 When smitten with disease, the Christian peasant resorts to a 
shrine ; the Moorish one to an instructed physician." 

Many persons believe, as did Archdeacon Paley, that it is 
not expected that prayers will be answered, but that they are 
simply acknowledgments of dependence upon a Superior being, 
or are regarded as one of the methods of worship, or as a form 
of church service, or, perhaps, as acts supposed to be pleasing 
to God and uttered for His glory and in His praise ; and yet a 
selfish hope for personal benefit is at the bottom of every 
prayer. Thomas Paine, writing to Samuel Adams, in 1803, 



282 PRAYER. 

says : "A man does not serve God by praying, for it is himself 
he is trying to serve, and as to hiring praying men to pray, as 
if the Deity needed instruction, it is in my opinion an abomina- 
tion. . . . You, my friend, will find, even in your last 
moments, more consolation in the silence of resignation than 
in the murmuring wish of a prayer." 

Prayer is offered to sanction injustice, robbery and even 
murder. It is a well-known practice of the Italian brigand to 
pray to the Virgin Mary as he is about to drive his stiletto to 
the heart of the wayfarer. 

In Yorkshire, England, in October, 1893, the strikers organ- 
ized a prayer meeting, which was well attended, and the most 
fervent prayers were uttered for the success of their work of 
destruction and murder. 

A negro was lynched at Frederick. Md., on November 17, 
1895. Immediately preceding which some officers of the 
Salvation Army, who formed part of the lynching mob, 
solemnized the occasion, and gave a religious sanction to the 
act about to be performed, by reciting the " Lord's Prayer ! " 

It is not the purpose of this article to make more than a 
passing allusion to the enormity of the practice of taxing those 
who regard prayers as utterly useless and absurd, for the pur- 
pose of placing chaplains in Congress, in our legislatures, in our 
army, navy, prisons, etc. ; but the wrong and the absurdity of 
such practice must be patent to every just and to every think- 
ing being. There is not one out often, or perhaps one out of 
fifty who ever gives the slightest attention to the prayers of 
chaplains. The custom has become a mockery and is treated 
generally with ridicule. The Star (newspaper) of Washington 
recently said that " as a rule the prayer of the Senate Chaplain 
is daily delivered to an almost empty chamber. . . . The 
ignoring of the prayer has grown to be a habit of the Senate." 

It is related of Judge Davis of Illinois — when President pro 
tempore of the Senate — that he entered the Chamber one day 
with the Chaplain, and the only senator present was Mr. Butler 
of South Carolina. Judge Davis, with all the solemnity and 



PRAYER. 283 

gravity usually observed by him, gave a stroke with his gavel 
and said: "The senator from South Carolina will come to 
order." 

At the peace Congress held in London in 1890, the Chair- 
man, Sir Hugh de Burgh Lawson, declared that he was op- 
posed to opening this session of the Congress with prayer, as 
it was inconsistent with the practice that obtained in his country 
of placing the eldest son in the army, "where he is taught to 
run his enemies through." 

The new and unsupposititious "Pilgrim's Progress," a pro- 
gression from the "slough of (superstitious) despond" to the 
solid rock of rational hope and independent thought, entitled 
Travels in Faith, by Capt. Robert C. Adams, of Montreal 
(son of the late Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams of Boston), is a 
most interesting work, and from its article on "Prayer" I 
take pleasure in quoting: "The shaking of the Joss-sticks 
in China, the whirling of the prayer- wheel in Burmah, the 
seven daily prostrations of the Mussulman, the counting of 
beads in Rome, and the prayer-meetings of Protestants, are 
alike, in their measure of success or failure. ... If the 
Supreme Power in the universe acts only through natural 
laws, prayer is irrational and useless, unless it can be proved 
that prayer is a natural force. . . . The sailor who prays 
for a fair wind really asks that other sailors may have a head 
wind ; and supposing that sailors pray, God is daily besought 
that the wind may blow from every point of the compass. 
Prayer is not only usually futile, but often injurious. 
It concentrates the mind upon itself and promotes selfishness. 
. . . Prayer has been the resort of laziness and has often 
paralyzed effort. ' ' 

Captain Adams quotes from Dr. Hammond to prove the 
effect the immagination has in producing cures, and instances 
a case of cure by the Croton Water, used in New York City, 
poured from a bottle labeled Lourdes Water, the patient, in 
unbounded faith, thinking it was what the label indicated it 
to be. 



284 PRAYER. 

That the effect of the imagination also shows itself in seem- 
ing answer to prayer cannot be disputed. There are too many 
instances thereof to occasion serious doubt. The mind of the 
true believer in prayer, and in answers thereto, is so thoroughly 
imbuded with faith, in the belief that " God is the hearer and 
answerer of prayer," we must admit, as a psychological fact, 
that prayers are (at least apparently) answered. 

Such (apparent) answers are, undoubtedly, simply and 
solely the operation of will, intensified by the " zeal of credu- 
lity." But no tranquil or thoughtful or logical mind can give 
credence to any claim that nature answers prayer or that there 
is a personality, somewhere in the universe, who has the 
faculty of so changing the invariable laws of nature as to do 
violence to those laws at the behest of any enthusiastic vis- 
ionary. 

As Clifford Howard says : " Prayers are productive of bene- 
ficial results, through purely natural causes. . . . While 
the efficiency of prayer is undoubted, its effects are not due to 
the supposed interposition of a supernatural power, but to the 
well known influence of the imagination over physical condi- 
tions." 

Professor Henry Drummond, of Glasgow, says : " We have 
been accustomed to look for spiritual gifts (joy and peace and 
rest and faith and love) to come in answer to prayer. They 
don't come in that way. ... I have met people who 
have been praying all their lives for these things and have 
not got them. The usual methods of sanctification are all 
futile." 

In 1872, Sir Henry Thompson wrote to Professor John 
Tyndall, suggesting a plan by which the " absolute calculable 
value of prayer " could (almost certainly) be ascertained. "A 
careful clinical observation" (for instance) to estimate the ex- 
tent or degree in which prayer is effective, would, it was 
thought, be a proper test, and so it was proposed that inmates 
of the wards of a selected hospital should, during a period of 
not less than three years, be made the object of special prayer 



PRAYER. 285 

by the whole body of the faithful, and the result be compared 
with that of an equal number of years when no such ' ' special ' ' 
effort had been made and when but a few comparatively of the 
faithful had prayed. 

Sir Henry argued that if prayer was effective, it would be 
proved by the result of such a concentration of prayer — such 
an avalanche of application — in comparison with those years 
when prayers were limited to a very much smaller number of 
persons. He urged the trial on the ground that "no more in- 
teresting subject of enquiry can exist for the honest believer 
than the extent of man's influence with heaven." 

Professor Tyndall, in endorsing the propriety of Sir Henry 
Thompson's proposed test, calls to mind the matter in dispute 
between Newton and Arago — the former claiming that light 
traveled faster in water than in air, the latter that the reverse 
was true. The question was submitted toa " test" and was 
conclusive against Newton. 

Professor Tyndall sees no good reason why a test of a ques- 
tion which has a vast number of persistent and intelligent ad- 
herents on both sides, as to the efficacy of prayer, should not 
likewise be submitted by both disputants. He does not contend 
for the extinction or displacement of prayer, but that, in his 
opinion, " physical nature is not its legitimate domain," and 
that " no good can come of giving it a delusive value by 
claiming for it a power in physical nature." 

And for this honest effort of endeavoring to determine, in a 
practical manner, one of the most important questions of the 
day, Professor Tyndall has been accused of "insolence, 
outrage, profanity and blasphemy," by those who reject every 
scientific thought which conflicts with the superstitions of the- 
ology. 

The Nation tells us that Professor Tyndall was substantially 
anticipated in his " prayer-test " by the natives of Hawaii, who, 
years before, had " challenged the missionaries to a competitive 
test of the value of prayer and a heathen sacrifice, as a means 
of stopping the dangerous flow of lava from Manna Loa." It 
is understood that the Christians had not as much confidence 



286 PRAYER. 

in the success of their prayer as the Sandwich Islanders had 
in their sacrifices, and so the missionaries declined to apply the 
test. 

On last " Thanksgiving day" what might be considered a 
true ' ' test ' ' of the efficacy of prayer was made, when the 
1 ' Christian Endeavors ' ' from all parts of the country convened 
at Cleveland, Ohio, and in a united and earnest and solemn 
and protracted effort, engaged in prayer for the conversion of 
Colonel Ingersoll. Ought not such an aggregation of sincere, 
praying Christians to have prevailed, if the tripartient, but 
unitive, Deity, to whom they prayed, sympathized with them 
in the object of their prayers and if, also, there were indeed 
any " Father, Son and Holy Ghost " to listen to them, or to 
any other prayers? 

If any thing so inconceivable, as such conversion, had taken 
place what an impulse would Christianity have acquired, what 
rejoicings, what anthems of praise, what hallelujahs of triumph 
would have sounded long and loud throughout the length and 
breath of Christendom ! 

Just imagine, if you can, this giant intellect, this matchless 
genius, the sublimity of whose mental visions is unexcelled ; 
whose imagery (as was said of the eloquent Kossuth) is like 
"the tracery upon a Damascus blade," whose cogent logic, 
stirring utterances, touching pathos', laughter-moving wit, 
whose devotion to freedom, love for his brother man, sympathy 
for the oppressed and needy, whose championship of right, of 
justice, of unrestrained thought, whose generosity, geniality, 
broad-mindedness, large heartedness, have won for him the 
admiration, the esteem, the gratitude and the love of his fellows 
— imagine such a captive in the hands of the enemies of mental 
liberty ! 

Shades of departed martyrs to Christian bigotry, persecution 
and cruelty ! fear not the impossible. 

Prayers by such narrow-minded, shriveled-hearted, religious 
zealots are futile, senseless and insulting. 

Ingersoll is too good a man and too ideal a character to be- 
come the target of such insolence. 



PRAYER. 287 

Shakespeare's was the supreme genius of the seventeenth 
century, Voltaire's the master mind of the eighteenth century, 
and Ingersoll's is the most brilliant intellect of the nineteenth 
century. All three, disbelievers in the dogmatic theology of 
their respective times. Toward such conspicuous and majestic 
figures in the realm of thought, have the arrows of religious 
fanaticism and degrading superstition, steeped in the gall and 
venom of ignorance and bigotry for the last three centuries, 
been directed. 

In 1880 another thorough test of the efficacy of prayer was 
had when prayers ascended for weeks from millions of Ameri- 
can Christians, for the life of President Garfield, but all like- 
wise, in vain. 

In Francis Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculties, a chapter 
entitled " Objective Efficacy of Prayer," is devoted to a pre- 
sentation of results obtained by — a comparison between — 
those who use prayer as a means for the attainment of certain 
ends and those who do not make such use of prayer. He 
shows that the agency of prayer is not recognized by the 
medical faculty. He also states that far more numerous pray- 
ers are offered for the long lives of sovereigns than for others, 
and yet that sovereigns are, on the average, the shortest lived 
of all. Comparing the lives of clergymen, lawyers and physi- 
cians, he shows that the former (though it is their profession to 
pray, and for whom more prayers are offered than for the other 
classes), are the shortest lived of the three professions. The 
Liturgy of the English church provides prayers for the nobil- 
ity, that they may be "endued with wisdom, understanding" 
etc. ; prayers, also, are especially offered for the religious, that 
their reason may be preserved. And yet, this author states that 
both these classes are peculiarly subject to insanity. The author 
is also unaware of any occasion where any writer on meteoro- 
logical science had discovered that the weather has been modi- 
fied by prayer. He also remarks on the fact that missionaries 
and others engaged in pious enterprises have no immunity 
from danger, which is appreciated by life insurance companies. 
Further, he questions if commercial undertakings, which have 



288 PRAYER. 

been inaugurated with prayer have been any more successful 
than those undertakings which have dispensed with prayer 
opening ; and shows what disastrous results attended at least 
one business enterprise, viz., the Royal British Bank, the pro- 
ceedings of which were opened with prayer. 

President Cleveland, following the improper and unauthor- 
ized examples of his predecessors of more recent years, issued 
a proclamation "appointing and setting apart" the 28th of 
November last as a day of thanksgiving and prayer. 

By what authority did he do this? Does he find warrant 
therefor in the Constitution of the United States, or in the laws 
of Congress ? If not, what business has he to ursurp such 
authority ? 

The American Sentinel says : " Who has appointed the 
President of the United States, the high priest of the nation — 
the Pontifex Maximus of the American stomach ? " 

These Thanksgiving day proclamations show to what extent 
we have departed from the secular idea of our government, as 
established by its founders. As an illustration, President 
Jefferson refused to appoint any days of thanksgiving and 
prayer during his administration, and on being petitioned, in 
1808, to proclaim a day of prayer and fasting, denied such 
petition, using this language : "I consider the government of 
the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from inter- 
meddling with religious institutions, doctrines, discipline or 
exercises." 

Presidents Washington and Madison held similar views. 

The language of President Cleveland's proclamation is : "I 
hereby appoint and set apart ... as a day of thanksgiv- 
ing and prayer to be kept by all our people ; " and he calls 
upon all to " humbly beseech the Lord," etc. 

What sublime impertinence ! 

Probably not more than one-tenth of the people of the 
United States believe in prayer, and yet he has the assurance 
to ask all the people to humbly beseech the Lord! 

The New York Tribune of Sept. 18, 1892, says : " A clergy- 



PRAYER. 289 

man spoke of prayer as touching the electric button which rings 
in heaven." 

The Rev. Mr. Moody, who was a passenger on the steamer 
Spree in December, 1892.. which came near foundering at sea, 
must have had an (electric) apparatus of that kind, for he had 
the assurance to claim that the vessel, cargo, passengers and 
crew were all saved by his interposition, through prayer ! 
To the credit of many others of the clergy, they protested 
against the vanity of this man in assuming that his intimacy 
and influence with the " supreme intelligence " was such that, 
had it not been for his individual supplication, all would have 
been lost. 

Have any of our fashionable people any intelligent concep- 
tion of the uses of prayer or have they ever studied its effects ? 
They utter their prayers or read their prayer-books by rote 
and without the slightest exercise of the faculty of the under- 
standing. Most of them indulge in prayer as a pastime, or as 
they would any other of the fashionable practices or pleasures 
of life. 

"She went from opera, park, assembly, play, 
To morning walks ; and prayers three hours a day." 

Miss Susan H. Wixon, of Fall River, recently delivered an 
admirable address on the subject : " Will the coming woman 
go to church?" Her conclusions were that the "coming 
woman" would not go to church, because (when the coming 
woman came) there would be no church to go to, that is, to 
any church where they read the Bible indiscriminately, sing 
praises to the "unknown quantity" called the Trinity, ox 
pray to an impossible Deity. So we may assume that the 
coming woman will not pray and for a similar reason, viz., 
that there will be no church to go to, where prayers are a 
requisite. We may likewise ask the question : Will the com- 
ing man pray? Assuredly not, if the coming woman don't 
pray. Intelligent, reflecting beings have been 

"Taught by millenniums of barren prayer" 

its utter uselessness. 



2gO PRAYER. 

Rev. Minot J. Savage asks : ' ' Will they pray in the church 
of the future ? ' ' and adds : ' ' The only thing in the prayer of 
the past that any new theory of the universe threatens to out- 
grow and leave behind is that which all noble men and women 
ought to be glad to be rid of. We have outgrown that con- 
ception of prayer which supposes that we, petty, ignorant, 
petulant, changing children, have power to interfere with the 
magnificent mechanism of the universe." 

Let us learn wisdom from the heathen (so-called) and sub- 
scribe to the sentiment of the Japanese (shinto) poet, Michizane : 

"Only if our inner heart is in harmony with the true way 
The gods will protect us, even though we do not pray." 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

"And in its place 
A mightier church shall come whose covenant word 
Shall be the deeds of love." 

"There will be a new church, founded on moral science." 

Emerson. 

"Religion is dying, but humanity is taking its place." 

Elizur Wright. 

"Theology is passing away and virtue is taking its place." 

M. M. Mangasarian. 

THE ever recurring question, " What is religion ? " is sug- 
gested in considering the subject before us. Religion 
may be defined as a system of belief in the supernatural. That, 
at least, is the commonly accepted signification of the term. 
And what is Christianity? There are various phases and 
classifications of the term, but it is generally conceded that by 
Christianity is meant, not the simple, gentle, kindly, fraternal, 
compassionate, sympathetic, tolerant, humane, loving religion 
of Christ, but a collection of doctrines enunciated by those 
who lived more than a century after Christ ; such doctrines 
having been remodeled from time to time by the "fathers of 
the church ' ' and reconstructed by its various councils. 

This preface seems requisite in an analysis of the constantly 
repeated question which Christians ask of those who have 
become emancipated from the thraldom of the church. 
"What are you going to give us in place of the religion of 
Christianity ? " A question which implies that the answer 
should be that something better, or at least as good, should be 

put in its place. 

(291) 



292 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Let us see what answers are the most appropriate, the most 
correct, the most consistent with the welfare and happiness of 
the human family. 

When the question was asked of Voltaire, he answered : ' ' If 
a surgeon is about to remove a cancer from the breast of 
some suffering being, do you ask what he will put in its place ? ' ' 

When Colonel Ingersoll was asked this question, he 
answered: "If a counterfeit bill is presented at a bank and 
payment refused, is it asked what is to be given in its place, 
to the holder of the counterfeit ? ' ' 

There is significance in both these answers, as they infer 
that Christianity, in the one case, is a cancer on the "body 
politic," and, in the other, a false representation, or counter- 
feit, of true religion. And does not a contemplation and 
study of Christianity, its teachings and requirements sustain 
these inferences ? 

In a book of recent date by the late Dr. Edwin Hatch of 
Oxford University is indicated with fidelity every step of the 
process by which "Christianity, from being a religion of life in 
its great founder's faith, and of hope and love, became, in the 
course of three centuries, a religion of belief, consigning to 
eternal hell all who were not prepared to give unquestioning 
assent to theological propositions which no mortal man could 
understand." 

Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, says : "The Chris- 
tianity of Jesus was divinely simple, in comparison with the 
stupendous system of ritual and dogma which has been foisted 
upon it, so burying it out of sight that many thousands have 
not known that such a thing once gladdened simple hearts. It 
was an easy system in comparison with that which finally cor- 
rupted it so grossly that there was left hardly a semblance of its 
original self. " Continuing, Rev. Mr. Chadwick speaks of the 
religion of Jesus and its simple requirements, viz., "to do 
justly and love mercy," and adds: "Nothing (required) 
about any forms and ceremonies, nothing about baptism or 
the eucharist, nothing about penances or fasts, nothing about 
the Apostles^ or the Nicene or the Athanasian creed, nothing 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. . 293 

about the confession of Augsburg or the thirty-nine articles of 
the Church of England or the thirty-three articles of the West- 
minster confession, nothing about the Trinity or the atonement, 
or total depravity or election or any of those things which 
have assumed so much importance in the history of the Chris- 
tian Church." 

Rev. S. D. McConnell, D. D., of Philadelphia, said there 
was " not a single ' confession of faith ' that was believed in, 
in its entirety, by even the most conservative members of the 
ministry of the church." 

Can we not, to advantage, put the simple religion of Christ 
in the place of the dogmatic, ceremonial religion of Christianity ? 

Is not the " pure and undenled religion " announced by the 
Apostle James, viz., " to visit the fatherless and the widow in 
their affliction and to keep one's self unspotted from the 
world," a far better, more practical, and more reasonable re- 
ligion and one that should properly take the place of a creed- 
bound Christianity ? 

No word of censure or criticism will be found, in this article, 
of primitive Christianity, but only of that monstrous system of 
theology, which assumed to be Christian and which for many 
centuries has been and is now taught from every orthodox 
pulpit. 

There is, also, a marked distinction between what Christ 
actually said and did and what is attributed to him by the 
(pious) interpolators and forgers of the Bible ; so that when 
speaking of Christianity, we do not mean the religion of Christ, 
but something as widely different from it as is the base from 
the pure metal. 

The kindly, humane, altruistic teachings of Gautama, of 
Confucius and of Christ, may — perhaps — be called religioji. 
But the Christianity which arose a century or more after the 
death of Christ, is more properly denominated theology. 

In T?'easury of Thought, by M. M. Ballou, we read : 

11 Religion is universal ; theology is exclusive. 

11 Religion is humanitarian ; theology is sectarian. 

" Religion united mankind ; theology divided it. 



294 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

' ' Religion is love ; theology preaches love and practices 
bigotry. 

1 ' Religion looks to the moral worth of man ; theology to 
his creed. 

11 Religion is peace ; theology is the apple of discord." 

The question really asked (though the orthodox Christian 
is so lamentably ignorant of what his religion teaches, that he 
is unwilling to admit it) is : What shall be put in the place of 
error, of the contradictions and indecencies in the Bible, of its 
pseudo-astronomy, geology and biology, of the untruthful 
stories of Eden, of Enoch, of Samson, of Jonah, of Job, of 
Daniel, of the standing still of the sun, of the feeding of Elijah 
by ravens and of his ride to heaven in a chariot of fire, of 
Elisha and the bears and the forty-two children, of the ut- 
terance of human speech by Balaam's beast of burden, of 
the confusion of tongues, of Solomon's temple, of the longevity 
of Methuselah, and of the many other preposterous records in 
the Old Testament, and of the miracles in the New Testament, 
the divinity, virgin birth, resurrection and ascension of Jesus ? 
There is but one answer to all these questions, and that is, 
Truth; put truth in the place of all these unreasonable, un- 
believable chronicles which are found in Christianity's untruth- 
ful and immoral textbook (the Holy [!] Bible). Why it is 
that virtuous men and modest women do not insist upon an 
expurgation of the obscene passages in the Bible, is incom- 
prehensible. By way of contrast thereto, Rev. James Legge, 
D. D,, a missionary to China, says : " You might read all the 
Confucian books, from beginning to end, in the presence of 
the most refined lady, without needing to omit a word." And 
so far as the untruthfulness of the Bible is concerned, if it is 
asked what is to be put in the place of such untruthfulness, it 
might with equal propriety be asked, What is to be put in 
place of yEsop's fables or of Munchausen's exaggerations? 

Prof. Felix Adler says : "The world is determined to hold 
fast to the old belief, not because it is believed to be true, but 
because it thinks it best to do so, until it finds something to 
1 take its place.' The God-Christ will be rejected, but the man- 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 295 

Jesus is to be the leader and the regenerative social movement 
of our own day." 

Colonel Ingersoll says in answer to the question, "What 
are we to give in place of our religion ? " — " For the vagaries 
of the clouds, the infidels propose to substitute the realities of 
earth ; for superstitions, the splendid demonstrations and 
achievements of science ; and for theological tyranny, the 
chainless liberty of thought." 

Rev. J. W. Chad wick says: "No maxim has been more 
injurious than that which formulates the absurdity that we 
should destroy nothing till we had something as good to put 
in its place." 

Rev. Charles Strong of Melbourne says : "We no more 
destroy the religion of Jesus by pulling an old theological 
house to pieces, than we destroy the stars by exploding old 
world theories about the earth being a plane and the stars 
rising above and setting below it." 

Leslie Stephen says : " If you would wait to speak the truth 
until you can replace the old decaying formula by a completely 
elaborated system, you must wait forever. Reconstruct, it is 
said, before you destroy. But you must destroy in order to 
reconstruct. The old husk of dead faith is pushed off by the 
growth of living beliefs below." 

In place of the crude Bible notion that " in the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth" — the sun and moon 
— and "made the stars also" (!) — with all the limitations 
which this puerile ' ' account of creation ' ' suggests — we recog- 
nize the infinite grandeur and boundless immensity of the 
universe, with its incalculably multitudinous orbs of light, the 
inconceivable illimitableness of space and the incomprehensible 
vastness of the eternity of time. 

In place of worshiping an imperfect, capricious, inconsistent 
God, which is "revealed" to us in the Bible, is it not far 
more reasonable to worship the beauties, the perfections, the 
sublimities, the unvarying laws, and the wonder-inspiring 
order of nature ? 

Instead of belief in miracles, or in their possibility, let us 



296 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

rather contemplate the far greater marvels of life, growth, 
decay and death, and the continuing process by which new 
life and growth are wrought by a natural and endless chain 
of cause and effect. 

" I venerate great Nature's plan, 
And worship at her shrine ; 
While goodness, truth and love in man, 
I hold to be divine." 

Professor Adler says: "Resurrection is a fact. On every 
hand we see Nature rising, and the glory of flowers and the 
song of birds, from the long (wintry) slumber into which she 
has been plunged." 

Instead of having veneration for a cruel, malevolent, relent- 
less, unjust Being, which the Christian religion exacts of its 
votaries, let us rejoice that such a Being is unknowable, un- 
thinkable, improbable, nay, impossible ; and that there vs vastly 
greater reasonableness and consistency in bestowing our heart's 
admiration and affection on our own educated and sympathetic 
humanity. 

Religion, as usually interpreted, does not — primarily — seek 
to control the moral being. It does not urge — except perhaps 
secondarily— to the leading of an upright life, to the perform- 
ance of those duties which are essential to the best interest of 
society, to the inculcation of those traits of character which 
tend to ennoble the human race, to the acquisition of that 
knowledge which, through unbiased investigation, leads to 
truth. But it demands unquestioning faith in its unproved and 
unprovable dogmas ; and as a reward for such faith — without 
a single other requisite — it promises an eternity of bliss. Is it 
possible to put in the place of such a religion anything more 
reasonless or demoralizing? 

Rev. J. W. Chadwick says : "The Nicene creed (the basis 
of Christianity) is all theology, without a syllable of ethics." 

Indeed, so far from the Christian religion encouraging 
morality, there are many and notable instances of its having 
discouraged it. Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., informs us that 
"immoral houses were licensed in London, in the twelfth 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 297 

century ; the Bishop of Westminster receiving the proceeds of 
such licenses. ' ' 

Do we not want to exchange for something better, a religion, 
the base career of whose sacred ( !) officials is a matter of history 
and which baseness extended to nearly all members of the Chris- 
tian church ? 

Hallam says: "All writers concur in stigmatizing the dis- 
soluteness which prevailed among the clergy." 

Do we not want a better religion than that which makes 
possible the immoralities of the confessional ? 

Do we not want a religion of a higher moral tone than that 
regarding which Luther said that a man might commit the 
grossest immorality, ' ' if he only believed enough on the Lord 
Jesus Christ ? " 

Lecky says : " The fathers laid it down as a distinct 
proposition that pious frauds are justifiable, and even laud- 
able." 

Guizot says : ' ' The church sank into barbarism. All re- 
mains of Roman civilization disappeared. All became buried 
in complete barbarism. On one side the rude barbarians, 
entering into the church, became bishops and priests ; on the 
other, the bishops, adopting the barbarian life became, without 
quitting their bishoprics, chiefs of bands of marauders and 
wandered over the country, pillaging and destroying, like so 
many companions of Clovis." 

Do we not want a more honest and more civilized religion 
than that which Christianity has proved itself to be ? 

In place of the teachings of Christianity regarding woman ; 
that maternity is a reproach ; that the wife shall be stoned to 
death, by her husband, if she should dare to hold any theolog- 
ical views different from his ; that woman is not the equal, but 
the inferior of man ; that she must hold herself in subjection to 
him ; that she must observe "silence" — not being "permitted 
to speak" in his august (!) presence; that man shall "rule 
over" her; that she shall be "under obedience" to him ; 
that she shall " submit" and " be subject " to him " in every- 
thing ; " that if she be curious enough to want to know any- 



298 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

thing she must "ask her husband," even though she may be 
vastly his intellectual superior. 

There is nothing more disgusting and vulgar than the teach- 
ings of the ' ' church fathers ' ' with regard to women ; as a 
specimen thereof, St. John Chrysostom says that "of all wild 
beasts, the most dangerous is woman." The influence of these 
teachings has caused the degeneracy of woman, as is clearly 
set forth by the late Professor Boyesen of Columbia Universi- 
ty, New York City, who says : " It is beyond dispute that 
Christianity has been the strongest of a number of cooperating 
factors to accomplish such degeneracy." 

The Christian church antagonized the efforts of paganism — 
in the earlier centuries — to grant more liberal laws to women. 

Frederick May Holland says : " The subjection of women 
to men, of citizens to sovereigns, of laity to clergy, of reason 
to faith, was insured by the organization of the Christian 
hierarchy." 

In place of the bigotry of Christianity, let us have the com- 
paratively tolerant religions of Brahmanism, of Buddhism, of 
Islamism, of Parseeism, of Confucianism and, above all, of 
Paganism. 

In place of those educational institutions, under control 
of the Christian church, which cling to theology and which so 
largely exclude the teachings of modern thought and the most 
advanced sciences, we would have taught the latest discoveries 
in the field of research. 

Do we want a religion which demands silence of the ' ' higher 
(or any other) criticism," and which prefers the stagnant and 
dangerous pool of mental sloth, rather than the agitated and 
healthful and truth-inciting contact with intelligent thought? 

Do we not want a religion which teaches truth in place of the 
false statements of zealous churchmen, in regard to the pro- 
gress of civilization, which was checked by Christianity, es- 
pecially when that system of religion became dominant in the 
fourth century, and which for over one thousand years was the 
most bitter enemy to social, industrial and educational ad- 
vancement ? 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 299 

And do we not want a more reliable religion than that of 
Christianity, which insists on denying the existence of charita- 
ble and remedial institutions long before the time when Christ 
appeared on the earth ? That hospitals, insane asylums and 
other humanitarian establishments were known more than two 
thousand years ago is as truly history as any other historical 
event which is recorded with reference to India, Egypt or any 
other ancient country. 

Do we not want a more truthful religion, "in place of" 
Christianity, which persists in repeating falsehoods regarding 
supposed fearful death-bed scenes of those who have refused to 
believe in the horrible doctrine of damnation for unbelief in 
unbelievable dogmas ? Abundant evidence — from physicians, 
truth-telling clergymen and others — has proved the falsity of 
such death-bed "writhings." 

What should be put in the place of Christianity which 
"changeth not," which adheres to creeds which were formula- 
ted centuries ago and which the changed circumstances and 
advanced thought of the day show to be obsolete ? Take, for 
example, the " Westminster Confession of Faith," which was 
the offspring of the unreasoning thought of 250 years ago, and 
which is largely repudiated by thinking Presbyterians. 

W. M. Salter says : "The objection to the old creeds is 
simply to their being made obligatory on the present." 

This fact, in connection with the one that there is a constant- 
ly increasing independence of thought in the church, accounts 
for the more numerous heresy trials of later years. 

Let us get back to the views of Epiphanius — one of the 
church fathers — who held that " wickedness was the only her- 
esy." Let us look with the hopeful eyes of Rev. Norman 
McLeod, the Scottish divine, whose vision of what was to take 
the place of the Christianity of to-day, revealed that " neither 
Calvanism, nor Presbyterianism, nor Thirty-nine Articles, nor 
High-Churchism, nor Low-Churchism, nor any existing or- 
ganization, can be the church of the future." 

It is asked what shall be given in place of a religion which 
sanctioned the infamous slave trade. It being shamelessly 



300 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

contended that, in exculpation of such infamy these ignorant, 
wretches were benefited by being brought out of the darkness 
of barbarianism into the light of Christianity ! 

Don't we want something better in place of a Christianity 
nine-tenths of the pulpits of which religion sided with slavery 
or were wanting in courage to range themselves on the side of 
liberty in our four years' war, which finally resulted in the 
emancipation of the slaves, but without the aid (except of a 
very few) of the ' 'preachers of righteousness ? " 

Is the question asked, what shall be given in place of a re- 
ligion, which, by reason of there being found within the lids of 
its sacred (!) writings, the words "Thou shalt not permit a 
witch to live," has cost the human race many millions of lives ; 
which religion by its irrational zeal, its insane infatuation, pros- 
ecuted crusade after crusade against an unoffending people till 
additional millions of lives were sacrificed ; and which re- 
ligion, for full fifteen centuries, has been the principal cause of 
war, with all its attendant horrors ? 

Professor Felix L. Oswald says : " From the tenth to 
the end of the sixteenth century not less than three million 
'heretics' — i.e., scholars and free enquirers — had to expiate 
their love of truth in the flames of the stake." 

The same author says ; " The extermination of the 
Moriscos reduced the population of Spain by seven mill- 
ions ; " and adds ; " The dogma of exclusive salvation by 
faith made forcible conversion an act of mercy and stimulated 
those wars of aggression that have cost the lives of more than 
thirty millions of our fellow men." 

Add hereto the estimate of Las Casas of the murder in Cuba 
of twelve millions of men, all — as Schopenhauer says — "for 
the sake of spreading the gospel ; and because all those who 
were not Christians were not regarded as human beings." 

O Liberty ! what crimes are committed in thy name ! " cried 
Madame Roland. 

But more truthful still is the utterance: "O Christianity ! 
what greater crimes have been committed in thy name ! " 

The same warlike spirit has manifested itself in the last half 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 301 

of this century, more especially by the most Christian nation, 
Great Britain. 

In the unrighteous Anglo-Chinese wars of 1857-60 eighteen 
out of twenty -three of the Christian bishops in the House of 
Lords voted for war, against the earnest protests of Lord 
Derby, Lord Russell, Disraeli, Cobden, Bright, Gladstone and 
other humane and justice-loving English statesmen. 

But should it not be asked : Are not these bishops merely 
illustrating the spirit of their Master, who, the Bible tells us, 
* 'came not to bring peace but a sword ? ' ' 

This spirit oi murder is showing itself to-day in the attitude 
of all the Christian nations of Europe, where standing armies 
of many millions of men are ready, and on comparatively 
slight provocation, to clutch the throats of their brother 
Christians. 

Christianity has also carried this war spirit into the next 
world, for we read there was once " war in heaven," according 
to the record of " St. John the Divine." 

What shall be given in place of Christianity which selects 
and proclaims such a tyrannical and cruel utterance as was at- 
tributed to Christ, viz : " They who will not that I shall rule 
over them, bring hither and slay them before me ; " or, " He 
that believeth not shall be damned ; " or, " Depart from me, 
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels ? ' ' 

What shall be given in place of a religion, the founder of 
which announced that he came to engender bitterness in the 
home, to stir up strife in the household, to cause contention in 
the family, ' ' to set a man at variance against his father and the 
daughter against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her 
mother-in-law? " Can any member of a loving family say that 
we do not want something very much better than such a re- 
ligion? " An hundred-fold" is the premium and "everlasting 
life " the reward Christ offers to those who can be induced to 
forsake brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife or children — for 
11 His name's sake ! ! " Surely is not any other religion, or no 
religion, far better than such unnatural and heartless teachings ? 



302 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Do we not want a kindlier and more cheerful religion in 
place of that which requires us to "mourn and weep" and 
which proclaims, " Woe unto you that laugh? " 

Buckle says : " All social pleasures are denounced (by be- 
lievers in the Bible.) . . . Whatever was natural was 
wrong." 

Surely, we can find some teachings that can be put to ad- 
vantage, in place of a religion which tells us that if an eye 
offend it must be plucked out ; that if a hand offend it must 
be cut off; that we must not resist evil ; that if assaulted on 
one cheek the other must be turned ; that if a thief makes way 
with your coat, you must give up your cloak also ; that 
no thought should be taken for the morrow ; that you 
must not refuse to give to any beggar or to lend to any 
borrower. 

The teachings of such lawlessness, such encouragement to 
oppression, to theft, to improvidence, to pauperism, to va- 
grancy, to idleness and consequently to other vices, would 
produce a state of society infinitely worse than anarchism, re- 
sulting in social chaos. Is there a single reputable Christian 
who desires such a condition of society "in place of" that 
which is governed by principle, by justice, by right, by indus- 
try, by frugality, by the experience of enlightened practices 
and the promptings of enlightened thought and action ? 

What should be given in place of a religion that resorted to 
the thumb-screw, the rack, the iron boot ? Colonel Ingersoll 
says : "I did not appreciate the infamies that have been 
committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron 
arguments which Christians used. ' ' 

It will not do to say that such cruelties were practiced in an 
intolerant age. The spirit of Christianity towards those who 
have the courage to reject its unseemly theologies is precisely 
the same (not differing even in degree) as it was in the six- 
teenth century. Proofs of which may be found in the unjust 
and tyrannical enactment of laws exempting churches from 
taxation ; which require religious teachings in our public 
schools ; which take the property of unreligious tax-payers to 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY 303 

pay the salaries of chaplains in our halls of legislation, in our 
army and navy and in our prisons ; and which may also be 
found in the attempt now being made to force a recognition of 
the Christian religion by an amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States. And when that is done it is not too much 
to predict that every act in conflict with the (amended) Con- 
stitution will be punishable by the same acts of bigotry which 
have disgraced, not alone Christianity, but humanity itself. It 
is easy to foretell their argument. They would say, " Is not 
this (heretical) act in violation of our Constitution? " and if so, 
11 Why should not such violations, such treasonable acts, be 
(severely) punished ?" So that Free Thinkers may prepare 
themselves for extreme measures when Christians get control 
of the government ; such measures, indeed, as will have their 
parallel, it may be, in the bigotry, persecution and torture of 
the Inquisition. 

In place of Christianity which teaches that it is right to do 
right for fear of punishment or for hope of reward, we would 
substitute that it is right to do right, because it is right so to 
do ; a principle infinitely superior to any religion that ever ex- 
isted. 

The same question was asked of Luther, by Roman Cath- 
olics — " What are you going to give us in place of our re- 
ligion? " It was then said that "Luther knew how to 
destroy, but not how to construct." These same questions 
are being asked to-day of those who are merely endeavoring to 
eliminate from the religion of Christianity the errors, the cru- 
elties, the obscenities, which are numerously found in the book 
which is the basis of that religion, and to fill their places with 
truth, compassion, refinement, to induce belief in reasonable 
creeds, to abandon obsolete dogmas, to have done with the 
superstitious belief in supernaturalism. 

In place of the Roman Catholic religion, Protestants adopted 
as a principle a religion which recognized the right of private 
judgment ; and now that Protestantism has proved false to that 
principle, why should we not re-assert that which exalts mental 



304 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

liberty above creeds, which puts justice and reason and truth 
above theological domination ? 

Heresy trials in the Protestant church show that there is lit- 
tle difference between the Romish and the Protestant church in 
the matter of tolerant thought and honest opinion. 

Both churches are exacting and bigoted and both are (more 
or less) in alliance, in the great conflict which for centuries has 
been waging between theology and unhampered thought. 

It is asked, can there be a religion of more gentleness and 
kindness than that of Christianity ? Listen to the answer of 
one well versed in ecclesiastical lore : ' ' History shows that 
religion has been more relentless under the auspices of Chris- 
tian theology than under those of all other theologies com- 
bined. . . It is the only fiend in the universe cruel enough 
to burn a man to death, by slow fire, for merely holding an 
opinion." 

Can it be seriously asked ' ' what is to be put in the place of" 
a religion which, as Colonel Ingersoll has expressed it, ' ' sends 
infants to perdition to increase God's glory and murderers to 
heaven to show the riches of his grace ? " 

Is the human mind capable of inventing aught that is more 
atrocious ? And yet every orthodox Christian subscribes to 
this infamous doctrine. 

Is it asked, what textbook can be given in place of the Bible, 
which according to Professor Ladd of Yale University, " con- 
tains probably a hundred thousand errors," and according to 
John E. Remsberg has "outraged decency by its obscene re- 
citals?" 

Do we ask what can be given in place of the God of the 
Bible ? Let the late Rev. Theodore Parker of Boston answer : 
" Vishnu, with a necklace of skulls, is a figure of love and 
mercy, compared to the God of the old Testament." 

" The God of the Bible is a moral monstrosity. " — (Beecher.) 
In place of the Christian dogmas — of the fall of man and of re- 
demption — let us adopt the scientific fact of the rise of man, 
from a lower order of being ; which fact entirely dispenses with 
the doctrine qfj^he atonement and all that follows in its train. 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 305 

Is it not desirable to have an investigating, progressive re- 
ligion, in place of Christianity, which ignores reason, retards 
discovery and antagonizes science ; as is clearly and amply 
demonstrated by Gibbon, Hume, Lecky, Buckle, Draper, 
Andrew D. White and other students and teachers of the 
truths of history ? 

In place of the Christian religion, which has discouraged the 
spread of intelligence and which applied the torch to libraries 
in Tripoli, Alexandria, Mexico and Grenada, let us have a re- 
ligion that seeks to diffuse knowledge, that fears not collections 
of facts, that encourages investigation, that is stimulated by a 
desire for truth, that believes in progressive thought, that gives 
the hospitality of the brain to every new idea or honest 
thought. 

In place of the Apostles,' or any other unreasonable and un- 
sympathetic, creed, let us recite : I believe in the divine in- 
fluence of natural affection ; in the Catholic church of humanity; 
in the communion of heart and of brain ; in forgiveness, 
charitableness and tolerance ; in the exaltation and cultivation 
of the nobler and finer attributes of our nature ; in the immor- 
tality of good deeds, great thoughts and grand achievements. 
To which may be added the creed of Ingersoll : " I believe in 
the fireside ; in the democracy of home ; in the republicanism 
of the family ; in liberty, equality and love." 

In one of Colonel Ingersoll' s lectures he says, "We got 
Shakespeare in the place of Calvin," the latter having died 
in the same year that the former was born ; and the Colonel 
has expressed the opinion that the world profited by the ex- 
change ; and in which opinion, all who are not heartless or 
barbarous will readily acquiesce. 

The exchange of the "church fathers" and all the other 
theologians who ever lived, for the few scientists of the closing 
years of this century, has been of incalculable benefit to the 
world. How greatly has intelligent thought been stimulated 
by the heroic attacks on the superstitions of the church by 
Voltaire, to whom (as the late James Russell Lowell has said) 



306 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

' ' we owe it — more than to any one man — that we can think 
and speak as we choose ! ' ' 

How well we could spare all the sermons of all the priests 
and ministers who ever existed for one leaf of the common 
sense and unanswerable logic of Thomas Paine' s Age of Reason ! 
How supremely absurd appear all the dogmas which the pul- 
pits of to-day are inculcating in credulous minds, by the side of 
those grand truths, brilliant thoughts and eloquent utterances 
which come from the lips of the most fascinating speaker of 
the English language, of whom the generous minded Rev. H. 
N. Thomas, D. D., of Chicago, says, ''There is perhaps a 
place and a need for Colonel Ingersoll's work, and more people 
look to him as a religious teacher and guide than to ayiy other 
teacher. ' ' 

Is it seriously believed that no better religion can be put in 
the place of one, the textbook of which religion unequivocally 
advocates polygamy, slavery and intemperance ? 

Can any one whose heart beats responsive to those struggling 
against despotic rule, seriously ask what will you give us ' ' in 
place of" a religion which upholds tyranny by proclaiming, 
' ' The powers that be are ordained of God ; ' ' thus stigmatizing 
the acts of the freedom-loving heroes of all ages, and in our 
own country of the noble and self-sacrificing patriots of the 
Revolution in striving for and securing the blessings of lib- 
erty, and creating a history, the grand achievements of which 
have no parallel in the annals of time ? Christianity takes to 
task all who participated in our efforts at independence of the 
mother country, for dari?ig to disobey the ' ' ordinance of God ' ' 
in converting the colonies of George III. into the "great 
Republic." Shade of Washington ! the Christian religion 
charges you with crime, the crime of loving liberty and of 
battling for the rights of man. Franklin, Jefferson, Paine and 
their compeers — all, likewise, criminals ! 

Do we not want a religion which discriminates between the 
acts of the humane and those of the brute murderer, in place 
of a religion which receives to its bosom a man who was guilty 
of a score of^nurders, as was the case of the wretch Holmes, 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 307 

recently executed, and who has become a sanctified saint, with 
all the benefits which the consolations of Christianity confer, 
including an eternity of bliss in the heavenly kingdom? This 
illustrates the beauty (!) of the Christian doctrine of eleventh- 
hour repentance. Holmes realized the forgiving, loving teach- 
ing of Christianity, that " though your sins be as scarlet they 
shall be made whiter than snow," and while Holmes is escorted 
by myriads of angels to the gates of the new Jerusalem and 
furnished with a harp with which to accompany his song of 
praise for the enchantments which surround him, many of his 
poor victims are suffering the pangs of undying torment. So 
says Christianity. 

Do we not want a more honorable religion in place of one 
which has deliberately appropriated a college to its own use, 
against the known desires and in violation of the expressed 
wishes of its founder? The history of Girard College, of 
Philadelphia, and its perversion from the grand intentions for 
it, of Stephen Girard, to the teaching of the unmeaning the- 
ology of Christianity, forms one of the most dastardly acts of 
treachery and robbery that any history can furnish. 

Do we not want a more rational religion " in the place " of 
that which has furnished so many imitations of Abraham offer- 
ing up Isaac ; actually sacrificing their own innocent flesh and 
blood because those who are emotional have believed that 
the inspired (!) book teaches such insane and inhuman sacri- 
fices ? 

What shall be given in place of a religion which repudiates 
reason and the supporters of which religion are (to quote from 
Benjamin Kidd's Social Evolution} " engaged in a remorseless 
and relentless struggle in which the opponent proves to be none 
other than his own reason f " To quote further from Kidd's 
book : "A rational religion is a scientific impossibility." 

Do we not want a better religion in place of that, which, 
by stimulating the emotional faculties of our nature, has re- 
sulted in deficient intellectual vigor, and which has filled our 
insane asylums as no other cause, than that of Christianity, has 
done? 



308 IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

What shall we give in place of a religion which encouraged 
an asceticism that could transform a noble human being into 
(as Lecky has said) ' ' a hideous, sordid and emaciated maniac, 
without knowledge, without patriotism, without natural affec- 
tion ; passing his life in a long routine of useless and atrocious 
self-torture and quailing before the ghostly phantoms of his 
delirious brain ? ' ' 

Surely there is something purer and more in accordance 
with nature than a religion which encourages (as does Chris- 
tianity) women to break the ties of family, to render callous 
natural affection and immure themselves in voluntary prison 
houses. 

During the trial of the late Professor Swing in Chicago for 
heresy, the articles of the Presbyterian faith then published 
were so shocking to those members of his church who had 
never read them that they imagined them to be forgeries. 
These articles of faith are now kept as far as possible from the 
eyes of intelligent Christians, and yet these articles are suf- 
ficiently known and comprehended to be discredited by those 
who are in search of facts and who are no longer believers by 
simple " faith alone." 

Do we not want some more honest religion in place of that 
which insincerely and hypocritically recognizes creeds which 
were formulated centuries ago and which the ministers of such 
religion know are untrue and unbelievable, and which ministers 
tell their congregations what they k?ww to be utterly in- 
defensible ? On this subject Dean Alford says: "There's 
many a thing said in many a sermon that, should the preacher 
enter a room, with an intelligent parishioner, eye to eye, he 
dare not stick to." 

Do we not want some better religion than that which falsely 
insists that Jesus had no natural father ; when the very book 
which Christians claim to be infallible says, as distinctly as it 
can, that Joseph was the father of Jesus, by giving — in Matthew 
and Luke — the genealogy of Jesus ; both accounts bringing it 
down, through Joseph, to Jesus ? True, in another part of 
the sacred (4) record it says he was ' ' conceived by the Holy 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 309 

Ghost," and in still another part, that he was the "only 
begotten Son of God." Thus the Bible tells us that Joseph 
was the father of Jesus, that the Holy Ghost was his father 
and that God was his father. Does not such a " Trinity " of 
contradictions show the inconsistency of the Christian religion ? 

Do we not want some better religion in the place of that 
which practices the deception of teaching the sacredness of a 
certain day, when they who so teach know that there is no 
warrant for such teaching? Christians, without the slightest of 
recognized authority, are most strenuous in the religious ob- 
servance of Sunday — giving (as Whittier has expressed it) 
" six days to mammon, one to cant." 

Is it asked what is to be given in place of 'faith in the Chris- 
tian religion ? It may be answered, we would have faith in 
humanity, faith in immutable physical laws, faith in the unvary- 
ing conditions which control the moral nature of man, faith in 
an upright life, faith in the eternal principle of justice, of right 
and of truth. Do not these indicate a sublimer faith than can 
be realized through faith in a religion of unproved dogmas and 
improbable myths ? 

" In place of" the astronomy, the geology and the biology 
of Moses, which Christianity insists is true, surely we have a 
more intelligent estimate of these sciences from the discoveries 
of Copernicus, of Humboldt and of Darwin. 

Can we not find some religion that illustrates more sin- 
cerity among those who profess belief in it and more fidelity 
to its founder than is shown by the treatment of Christ by his 
disciples ; that false friendship, by which he was doubted by 
one, denied by another, betrayed by still another and finally 
forsaken by all? 

President Patton of Princeton University says, " Christianity 
is not a life, but a dogma." This is an honest statement of the 
orthodox Christian religion. In place of such a doctrine ; in 
place of all the dogmas that have been formulated by all the 
councils of the church ; in place of all its creeds and confessions 
of faith ; in place of all the professions of belief by all the 
zealots of Christendom ; let us offer the simple teaching and 



3IO IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

striving for an upright life, let us build up character, let us en- 
courage refinement, purity, good deeds, humane feelings, 
generous impulses, kindly thoughts, beneficent acts ; in fine, 
let us reverse the position claimed for Christianity and declare 
that religion should be a life and not a dogma. What possible 
influence on the aims and aspirations of exalted character can 
be had by belief in the dogmas of predestination, sanctifica- 
tion, justification, effectual calling, baptism, the Trinity, the 
atonement, in the resurrection, the immaculate conception, or 
the "procession" of the Holy Ghost? 

Does it make any one happier or better to believe in the 
Westminster "Confession of Faith" — Chapter X. — which 
reads : ' ' Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and 
saved . . , others not elected cannot be saved" 1 

In the place of theological religion we would substitute the 
religion of ethical culture ; in place of superstition we would 
put rational thought ; in place of the jw/^rnatural, the natural ; 
in place of fear for the future, we would content ourselves with 
the joys of the present, and hope for their continuance. In 
place of the " fear of God," of the evil one, of endless torment, 
let us be attracted to a religion of confidence, of trust, of hope, 
of cheer and of love. For the futility of prayer, we would 
offer the labor of the hands and the exercise of the brain. In 
place of useless and senseless church creeds let us interest our- 
selves in whatever may tend to benefit mankind. 

In place of the unlettered, ignorant, superstitious past, we 
would put the cultivated, intelligent, realistic present. 

In place of admitting the possibility of the truth of miracles, 
let us scrutinize the character of the evidence by which mira- 
cles are imposed upon the credulous. 

In place of recognizing authority as truth (as taught by 
Christianity, ) let us rather regard truth as authority (as reason 
teaches.) 

In place of the Christian church, hemmed in by its restricted, 
ignorant and cruel beliefs, denying admission to the noblest 
and most intelligent of the race and rejecting the most beauti- 
ful and gladsome and useful lessons of life ; we would, with 



IN PLACE OF CHRISTIANITY. 311 

Colonel Ingersoll, join the ' 'great church that holds the world 
within its star-lit aisles ; that claims the great and good of every 
race and clime ; that finds with joy the grains of gold in every 
creed and floods with light and love the germs of good in 
every soul." 

In place of the Christian religion, with its pretentious sanc- 
tuaries, its arrogant and pharisaical officials, its warlike teach- 
ings, its injustice, its cant, its want of truthfulness and its les- 
sons of hate, may we be able to realize in the not distant 
future the grand and rational "Dream of Akbar," as por- 
trayed by Tennyson — 

" I dream'd 
That stone by stone I rear'd a sacred fane, 
A Temple, neither Pagod, Mosque, nor Church, 
But loftier, simpler, always open-door'd 
To every breath from heaven ; and Truth and Peace 
And Love and Justice came and dwelt therein." 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

PROBABLY very few persons are aware of the danger to 
civil liberty now threatened in this country. Those who 
founded the government did so with a jealous eye to all relig- 
ious encroachments upon the political liberties of the people. 
These founders of the Republic sought to profit by the fearful 
results of an alliance of the church with the state in other 
countries. They had read the bloody pages of religious 
history. They were warned by the intolerance, the persecu- 
tions, the tortures, the butcheries, which religious zeal and ec- 
clesiastical bigotry had accomplished against those whose only 
crime was the claiming of natural liberty and the assertion of 
those rights to which they were entitled by a proper recogni- 
tion of the principle of civil and religious freedom : the right to 
hold their honest opinions and to express their honest thoughts 
on matters of religion. 

There are not many Roman Catholics who take the patriotic 
view ' ' that the state with us has no religion and that it cannot 
and ought not to recognize any church," and yet this is the 
liberal-minded utterance of Father Stafford of Baltimore. 

In violation of this principle, the statute books of every state 
in our Union abound with laws which are a virtual recognition 
of the Christian religion ; and thus is the Christian Church im- 
posed or forced upon the people of these states. 

Every state (California excepted) has its Sunday laws, with 
more or less severe penalties for their violation. 

In fourteen states the law relating to the taking of an oath is 

such that no conscientious agnostic can adopt it. In some 

states, like it is in Arkansas, ' ' No person who denies the being 

(312) 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 313 

of a God shall hold office in civil departments of the state nor 
be competent to testify as witness in any court." 

Who knows that there is such a " being" as God ? The 
clergy of every denomination may be challenged to bring the 
slightest proof of what they know — not what they think, or 
suppose or guess, but what they actually know about the 
personality they call " God." 

In thirteen of the states are what are called " Blasphemy 
laws," which consist of expressing disbelief in God, Jesus 
Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Trinity, the Christian religion or 
the Bible ; such disbelief being differently expressed in the 
laws of the different states. All such laws are in contravention 
of the Constitution of the United States, which provides that 
no religious test shall be required as a qualification to office 
and no law respecting an establishment of religion shall be 
made. They are likewise in contravention of the provisions 
of nearly every one of the constitutions of the respective states. 
The substance of these provisions may be illustrated by the 
words of the Constitution of Colorado, viz. : " No person shall 
be denied any civil or political right, privileges or capacity on 
account of his opinions concerning religion." In face of the 
constitutional guarantees of the several states, to all citizens, 
that they are entitled to every right which any other citizen 
possesses ; in our public schools, non-sectarians are taxed to 
support such schools, in which are heard the reading of sectarian 
books, the singing of sectarian hymns and the utterance of 
sectarian prayers ; the tax-payer's money being spent for 
Bibles and for hymn and prayer books, in violation of the 
principle which refuses to tax those whose views on the ques- 
tion of religion in the public schools are ignored. 

What have these religious exercises to do, necessarily, with 
education, any more than they have to do with the teaching 
of carpentry, or of dancing, or of art. Children are sent to 
public schools to learn what is profitable and useful in this 
world and not to be instructed in the dogmas pertaining to 
some other world, of which they know absolutely nothing. 

There are also those (and millions of them) who are opposed 



3^4 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

to religious exercises in our congress, in our legislature, in our 
prisons, in the army and navy, and who are opposed to the 
paying from the public treasury of chaplains ; such opponents 
denying the right of government to tax them for such purposes. 

Mr. Maguire, M. C, from California, voices the sentiment of 
every lover of justice in saying as he did in the House of 
Representatives, "There is an establishment of religion and 
there are repeated appropriations for the establishment and 
promotion of religion here, which we ought to stop." 

The Army Register furnishes some particulars regarding the 
pay of army and navy chaplains, which amounts annually to 
$84,600 for army chaplains ; $60,000 for navy chaplains. 

It is estimated that during our four years of civil war the 
chaplains in the army cost the United States government six 
millions of dollars, and those of the navy two millions — or a 
total of $8,000,000. 

On February 21, 1896, Rev. C. J. Ochschlaeger, of Rich- 
mond, Va., was invited to act as chaplain of the House of As- 
sembly, but declined, saying, "I do not believe in opening a 
promiscuous political body with prayer. It is an abuse of prayer, 
and an unnatural union of church and state. . . . The states, 
which the Assembly represents, has nothing to do with prayer." 
Rev. Dr. Hawthorne of Atlanta, Ga., says, "In appointing 
men to these offices (chaplaincies) and paying them for their 
services with money taken from its own treasury, the state 
does more than protect the Christian religion. It patronizes 
it, and any government patronage of religion is a violation of 
the rights of conscience. . . . While these abuses of civil 
government exist let no man speak of this country as a land of 
religious liberty." 

The constitution of many of the states provide (as does that 
of Illinois) that " No person shall be required to attend or sup- 
port any ministry or place of worship against his consent," and 
yet by the practice of exempting church property from taxa- 
tion, are not very many taxpayers required to support places 
of worship against their consent ? It makes no difference 
whatever whether the legislators of the several states actually 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 315 

donate to the churches an amount of money equal to the taxes 
for which they are (or should be) liable or whether they ex- 
empt such churches from taxation. The state, virtually, pays 
the tax of every church, by reason of its exemption from taxa- 
tion. How can good, law-abiding, Christian people reconcile 
their consciences to such transgressions of law and how can 
Christians, who profess to be honest, take, illegally, money 
that belongs to others ? 

There are laws also in many of the states against "ap- 
propriations for sectarian purposes." Is not exempting prop- 
erty from taxation in effect making appropriations for sectarian 
purposes? 

Besides the indirect method of appropriations to churches 
by exemptions from taxation, churches and other sectarian in- 
stitutions receive — directly — from the state, large sums of 
money, in total disregard of laws on the statute books of most 
of the states which distinctly and emphatically forbid such ap- 
propriations. 

The Truth Seeker Annual for 1886 gives the amount donated 
by the state of New York for sixteen years (additional to what 
the churches get by being exempted from tax) and the result 
shows a present of $13,000,000 to the Romish, and $8,500,000 
to the Protestant church. 

Another great injustice is the committing, or the effort to 
commit, the people of the country to a recognition of the Chris- 
tian religion by the issuing of proclamations setting apart certain 
days to be observed religiously by all the people. Fortunately 
there are but few who heed such proclamations, but they are 
nevertheless most intolerable pieces of assurance on the part of 
those who issue them. They are contrary to the spirit of 
secular government and ought not to be allowed in a govern- 
ment which recognizes no religion. 

The laws which are most prevalent and which are found on 
the statute book of every state in the Union (with the exception 
of California), are the Sunday laws, and yet there are no laws, 
the origin of which is so little understood — or which are more 
senseless, or which so interfere with the rights and privileges 



3l6 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

of the people. There is not a Christian throughout the country 
who can give one satisfactory reason why Sunday should be 
kept as a religious day. There is not one professor of the 
Christian religion who can furnish the slightest authority for 
the religious observance of that day. These Sunday laws are 
in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and they 
also violate the most cherished principle of equal and exact 
justice to all. There is probably nothing in our history which 
shows the abandonment of this principle as the persistence with 
which these Sunday laws are now enforced and there is no 
clearer indication of the danger to our Republic than is shown 
in these unrighteous laws. If it is wrong to pass laws which 
would prohibit people from praying on Sunday, why is it not 
equally wrong to prohibit playing on that day ? 

The Sunday laws are the growth of many decades in our 
history. They show a gradual but steady departure from the 
views of the proper relations between religion and the govern- 
ment which were entertained by the patriots of the earlier days 
of our national existence. 

In 1829 petitions were presented to Congress for the discon- 
tinuance of Sunday mails. Col. Richard M. Johnson, as chair- 
man of the Senate and House Committee to which said petitions 
were referred, reported as follows : "Among all the religious 
persecutions with which almost every page of modern history 
is stained, no victim ever suffered but for the violation of what 
government denominated * the law of God.' To prevent a 
similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely 
withheld from our government the power of defining the ' di- 
vine law.' It is a right reserved to each citizen. . . . Ex- 
tensive religious combinations to effect political objects are 
always dangerous. . . . All religious despotism com- 
mences by combination and influence, and when the influence 
begins to operate upon the political institutions of the country, 
the civil power soon bends under, and the catastrophy of 
other nations furnish an awful warning of the consequence." 

This report met, generally, the approval of the people at 
that time. Various states took active part in the matter. 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 317 

The legislature of Illinois sent instructions to their representa- 
tives in Washington to oppose the movement against Sunday 
mails, stating their belief that "such an innovation upon our 
republican institutions would establish a precedent of danger- 
ous tendency to our privileges as freemen by inviting a legis- 
lative decision in a religious controversy." The Sunday law 
fanatics, since those days, have become bolder, more deter- 
mined and more disregardful than ever of the rights of those 
who differ from them in opinion. The American Sentinel, 
though a Christian paper, is doing excellent service in battling 
for the principle of church and state separation. Alluding to 
the action taken in 1829 against the efforts then made to stop 
the mails on Sunday, it said that such action " seemed to settle 
the question for upwards of sixty years, but the Sunday law 
fever has now broken out anew, and with perhaps an added 
virulence. A contest is on — the end of which no one can 
tell ! ' ' The Evayigel and Sabbath Outlook, also a religious 
paper, edited by Rev. A. H. Lewis, D. D., has likewise done 
valuable aid to the cause of abolishing all Sunday laws. 

There are other religious newspapers and there are church 
organizations, which are (more or less) opposed to our Sun- 
day laws. 

The ministers of the Lutheran church recently declared, 
" We honestly believe that the Sunday law in its present form, 
fosters hypocrisy and sham and opens a wide door for much 
that is unholy and morally wrong, instead of promoting the 
moral welfare of the community. . . . We do most em- 
phatically protest against the confounding of church and state, 
which is hereby involved." 

The persecutions of Seventh Day Baptists, in these closing 
years of the nineteenth century, read like a chapter from the 
history of the days of Torquemada, Here are upright (Chris- 
tian) people fined, imprisoned and compelled to serve in chain 
gangs ; all because they believe what the Bible teaches, viz., 
that the seventh day (and not the first day) of the week is the 
Sabbath. Fifteen states of this Union have disgraced them- 
selves by such laws as made possible the treatment of honest, 



318 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

conscientious citizens, as though they had been really guilty 
of crime, merely for doing some necessary or proper work on 
a day on which their religion justifies their working. The con- 
sciences of these people require that they shall keep Saturday 
as a sacred day ; and the government requires that they shall 
also keep Sunday in the same manner ; thus giving them but 
five days as "bread winners," while others are given six days. 
Are these people awarded, by government, the equal rights 
which other citizens possess ? 

Is there anything more arbitrary than the acts of government 
which are dictated by these Sabbatarians ? 

Such wrongs are an indication of the danger to the stability 
of the Republic, should the enforcement of them be permitted 
to continue. Stewart Chaplin, in the Examiner, states the 
Baptist position regarding Sunday laws to be that " to permit 
the state to interfere at all with anyone's religious — or non- 
religious — observances, is fraught with the gravest danger ; 
and the only true policy is to keep the state out of religious 
matters. ' ' 

The absurd " Barber's law," which existed at one time in 
California, was declared by its Supreme Court to be uncon- 
stitutional, ' ' no reason having been shown why the followers 
of one useful and unobjectional occupation should be debarred 
from the right to labor on certain days and not upon others. 
When any such class is singled out and put under the criminal 
ban of such a law as this, the law is not only special, unjust 
and unreasonable in its operation, but it works an invasion of 
individual liberty." 

As a further evidence of returning sense, the American 
Sentinel tells us that a despatch has recently been received 
from New Orleans, La. , stating that after ten years' trial of the 
Sunday law, the Louisiana legislature has finally decided to 
abandon it. So far as New Orleans is concerned, evidence 
upon the question of the repeal of the law was brought before 
the Judiciary Committee of the State Senate ; every member 
of the committee being opposed to its further enforcement. 
It was testified!) y four of the five members of the police board 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 319 

that it tended greatly to demoralize the police force and to en- 
courage blackmail. It was also testified that the attempt to 
enforce the Sunday law drew upon the strength of the police 
department, so that not enough men were left to properly 
police the city, also that arrest for drunkenness had not de- 
creased, but increased since the law passed. The same ex- 
perience is observable in every city where these unjust and 
absurd Sunday laws are enforced. Besides what business is it 
of anyone, so long as I do not interfere with my neighbor, what 
my own private convictions of duty call upon me to perform on 
Sunday or on any other day of the week ? 

But sad to relate, the Supreme Court of the United States 
(the Truth Seeker tells us) handed down, May 28th, last, a 
decision, delivered by Judge Harlan, affirming the constitu- 
tionality of the section of the code of Georgia, which prohibits 
the running of freight trains in that state on Sunday. 

But what think you is the basis of that decision? It is that 
11 a state has the power to protect the health and the morals 
of the people ! " The inference or insinuation being that 
those who do not favor the religious observance of Sunday, 
are of necessity, immoral persons ! Was there ever a more 
arrogant or insulting claim ? 

To the honor of Chief Justice Fuller and one or two of his 
associates, they dissented from a decision which (virtually) 
charged non-Sunday observers with immorality. 

The "Woman's National Sabbath Alliance," recently or- 
ganized, has for its object to "conserve the sanctity of 
Sunday," and the prevention of every kind of amusement or 
entertainment, including Sunday newspapers, bicycling, driv- 
ing, or other means of traveling on Sunday. 

Professor Felix L. Oswald, in North American Review, 
January, 1896, says : " That belief (in the possibility of better- 
ing the world by the suppression of popular pastimes,) the 
key-stone dogma of anti-naturalism, asserted itself in rancorous 
fury against the ' worldliness ' of physical culture ; against the 
pagan worship of joy ; against the Easter firesides, May poles 
and round dances of our medieval ancestors ; against the enter- 



320 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

tainment of the modern theater, and finally in the enforcement 
of a mawkish quietism on the day when a large plurality of our 
workingmen get their chance for out-door sports." 

What is called the " Continental Sabbath " is denounced by 
all religious people, and yet there is more rational enjoyment, 
more propriety observed and more true morality practised on 
Sunday in Continental Europe than under the restrictions of 
the Puritan Sabbath in Great Britain and America. Are we 
not fast retrograding to the earlier years of our history when 
what was called " Sunday desecration " was punishable with 
death ? 

1 ' What can the enforcement of Sabbath observance be but a 
union of church and state? " — (J. B. Thayer.) 

But the culmination of fanaticism is in the efforts which for 
years have been and are now being made to compel the people 
of this country to recognize the Christian religion by amending 
the preamble of the Constitution. These efforts are being 
made against the warnings of those who founded our govern- 
ment and against the earnest protests of every true and un- 
biased patriot — Christian, Jew or Gentile — who sees danger to 
the Republic in a union of the Christian (or any other) church 
with the state. 

The precise language of this proposed amendment — which 
was introduced into Congress, January 25th, 1894, by Senator 
Frye in the Senate, and by Representative Morse in the House 
— is as follows : ' ' We, the people of the United States, devoutly 
acknowledging the Supreme authority and just govern- 
ment of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and nations ; 
grateful to Him for our civil and religious liberty and en- 
couraged by the assurance of His Word to invoke His guid- 
ance, as a Christian nation according to His appointed way, 
through Jesus Christ." 

Thus embedding in the Constitution constitutional law.which 
commits every citizen of the United States to a belief in or 
acknowledgment of a personal deity and to the divinity of Christ 
(neither of which no one knows anything about), also recog- 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 32 1 

nizing the Bible as a true and pure book (notwithstanding its 
tens of thousands of errors and its notorious obscenities). 

Have the zealots who are urging this improper and unjust 
measure the slightest idea of the imminent danger to the 
Republic which their success will surely occasion ? Do they 
realize the possibilities — nay, the probabilities — of the most 
fearful, unnatural, fratricidal war which the pages of history 
have ever recorded ? 

Will they refuse to heed the warnings of those who laid the 
foundations of this grand temple of liberty against any attempt 
to fasten the church upon the state ? Will they respect th~ 
words of Washington when he emphasized the utterance, 
"This is not a Christian nation?" Will they be influenced 
by the opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, Madison and 
Monroe, whose well known views were in opposition to the 
slightest connection of the church and the state? Will, they 
risk the peace and harmony and prosperity now existing through- 
out the land ? Will they tempt bitterness, enmity, strife and 
disaster, which their insane efforts to force religion upon an un- 
willing people will surely accomplish? Will they insist upon 
going back to ancient and ignorant and bigoted times, and 
upon establishing a Theocracy on the ruins of popular De- 
mocracy ? Will they require us to abandon this government 
"of the people, by the people, for the people" for the rule 
of some mystical or mythical being, supposed to exist some- 
where beyond the clouds ? 

Col. Ingersoll says: "In the administration of Theocracy 
all the instruments of torture have been invented. If any 
man wishes to have God recognized in the Constitution of our 
country, let him read the history of the Inquisition and let him 
remember that hundreds of millions of men, women and chil- 
dren have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the ap- 
probation of this God." 

Will these "God in the Constitution " enthusiasts continue 
to deny the cherished right of private opinions in matters of 
religion, the denial of which right has been the most fruitful 



2,22 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

source of destruction and carnage ; converting human beings 
into savage beasts ? 

In Goodrich's Church History we are told that fifty millions 
of people became martyrs to the consequences of a union of 
church and state. 

Human nature has not changed since the days when Chris- 
tians tortured and murdered Bruno, Servetus, Vanini and others. 
At all events, the spirit which animates Christianity is the same 
intolerant, persecuting, relentless, cruel, malevolent disposition 
to-day that it was three centuries ago. Intelligent people 
should make no mistake on this point. There is no religion 
in the world that is not only more heartless, but more heedless 
of the rights of others. It is the nature of Christianity (not 
alone the teachings of Jesuitism) to believe that "the end justi- 
fies the means." 

The Christian church has adopted the highwayman rr-ethod 
of thought — " we've got the power and we propose to use it." 
The question as to whether it is right or just has no place in 
the ethics of Christianity and this has been its prominent 
characteristic since it first obtained political power in the fourth 
century. 

As illustration — 

President Seelye, of Amherst College, says: "The state 
must teach religion. If its subjects approve, well — if not, the 
state must not falter." 

The Memphis Appeal says : " The laws against the violation 
of one day of rest are unrepealed, and — no matter whether just 
or unjust — wise or unwise, they should be enforced." 

Are not such utterances as these a danger to the Republic ? 
Shall unjust and cruel laws, which deny equal rights to all and 
which conflict with the spirit of uniform political liberty, be en- 
forced ? 

Is it supposed that those who have inherited an intense love 
of liberty are to tamely submit to any usurpation that will 
wrest from them their liberty ? 

The violation of the law pertaining to witchcraft was punish- 
able with deatrT; was it not an unjust law ? and, if so, should 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 323 

such a law be executed and innocent women perish in flame 
lit by the fiends of fanaticism ? 

Did humanity-loving people violate the provisions of the 
fugitive slave law in refusing to aid, as the law called upon 
them to do, in its enforcement? 

It is urged (and by intelligent and well-meaning people) that 
every law on the statute book should be executed. 

There was once a law which forbade the reading of the Bible. 
Did Luther and his followers violate it ? 

By the enforcement of a law in the Netherlands, a large 
number of Protestants were hanged. 

Equally cruel was the enforcement of laws against Catholics, 
by Protestants. 

Enforcement of unjust laws has decimated communities in 
every age of the world, and caused rivers of blood in the pro- 
cess of such enforcement. 

The Czar of Russia and the Queen of England are supposed 
to reign by "Divine right," and the state church in each is 
the supreme law of their respective countries. Will the liberty- 
loving people of this country recognize the President of the 
United States as holding his office by a similar (divine) right 
if the religious zealots in this country should succeed in 
establishing a theocracy here? Will the President of the 
United States then be absolute judge in matters ecclesiastical? 

If the Constitution be amended by the preamble recognizing 
the Christian religion we would have the incongruity of such 
recognition followed by the first amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, saying: "Congress shall pass no law respecting the 
establishment of religion," or, in other words, Congress would 
pass a law respecting the establishment of religion and then 
would follow an act of the Constitution saying that Congress 
should not pass such a law. 

Instead of the disingenuous method of endeavoring to es- 
tablish religion oy a new preamble to the Constitution, why 
not adopt the more manly and undissembled course of urging 
a repeal of the first amendment to the Constitution. 

After God has been put into the Constitution, whose God 



324 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

will he be? The Roman Catholics' or the Protestants' ? The 
Calvinists' or the Armenians' ? The Seventh Day or the first 
day Baptists' ? The Trinitarians' or the Unitarians' ? The 
God of orthodox, or of liberal Christianity ? Is there not great 
danger that one of these various sects will appropriate the God 
of the Constitution to its exclusive use and benefit, and conse- 
quently persecute other believers in God, as has been the 
case, for centuries, the world over ? 

Mr. Madison says: "Who does not see that the same 
authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all 
other religions, may establish, with the same ease, any particular 
sect of Christians ? ' ' 

Mr. A. T. Jones, in a pamphlet recently published, says 
that "the National Reform Association is nothing else than 
Reformed Presbyterianism in politics." 

There are open and pronounced enemies of the liberties of 
the people. The Roman Catholics are largely so. But the 
Protestants are its secret enemies ; they disclaim any sympathy 
with the union of the church and the state, but are constantly 
doing all they can in favor of such union, if, only, it can be 
placed under Protestant control. 

The most dangerous enemies of the Republic are the 
"American Protective Association," the "American Sabbath 
Union," and the " Women's Christian Temperance Union." 
While they profess a sacred regard for the principle of separa- 
tion of church and state, they are the most insiduous enemies 
of that principle. 

The Christian Statesman, the most ardent of those who are 
trying to break up the government, is bold enough and frank 
enough to admit that " the existence of a Christian Constitu- 
tion would disfranchise every loyally consistent infidel." 

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in a speech at the National Re- 
form Convention in 1873, defined infidels as "Atheists, Deists, 
Jews and Seventh-Day Baptists." 

The term " infidelity" is intended to be a term of reproach, 
and yet some of the grandest characters in history have been 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. . 325 

infidels : Anaxagoras, Socrates, Luther and Jesus himself were 
infidels to the prevailing religion of their times. 

The deceptiveness of the Protestant Church is also shown by 
quoting from the late Judge Story, who said, " Protestantism, 
at the very moment it was proclaiming the right of private 
judgment, prescribed boundaries to that right, beyond which, 
if anyone dared to pass, he must seal his rashness with the 
blood of martyrdom." 

The "Salvation Army," "Christian Endeavors," the "Evan- 
gelical Alliance," and other similar organizations are an un- 
doubted peril to the liberties of the country. Speaking of 
the "Christian Endeavors," the American Sentinel says: 
' ' Masked beneath its Christian exterior (disguised even to 
the mass of Endeavors themselves), there moves with it the 
deadliest foe of our civil rights and liberties. In the proposed 
change in the Constitution preamble the arm of this foe is 
seen uplifted to strike at the Magna Charta of American free- 
dom. In the zealous movement of legislation to compel Sun- 
day observance, its hand is stretched forth to seize upon liberty 
of conscience. It is high time that the American people were 
aroused to the peril of the situation." 

Are Protestants aware that they are working for the Roman 
Catholic Church of the future? If Romanism increases in the 
future, as it has in the past, in this country, and Protestantism 
declines, as it has been doing, in about the same proportion as 
the former increases, Roman Catholicism will surely be the 
controlling religion of the country, and that before long. Pro- 
testants insist upon the state being allied to the church. What 
will they think of the unity of the state and the church, when 
they wake up to a realizing sense of the fact that the " Church" 
is the Romish (and not the Protestant) church ? 

To the credit of many of the clergy and other Christians, 
these encroachments upon our liberties are not supported by 
all adherents of this church (Romanist or Protestant), many of 
them contending for the absolute separation of church and state 
as a principle. There are many honored names connected 
with the Christian minority who look with grave interest 



326 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

upon the efforts of fanaticism to Christianize the country by 
law, and thus to increase the dangers to the Republic which 
an association between ecclesiasticism and the state is sure to 
accomplish. 

Mr. George Russell writes to the London Daily Chronicle : 
' ' I am a firm believer in the spiritual claims and the doctrinal 
system of the Church of England ; but I think it unjust to teach 
baptismal regeneration with money from Baptists and Inde- 
pendents ; to teach the Godhead of Christ with money taken 
from the Jews ; to teach the doctrines of the Holy Trinity with 
money taken from the Unitarians ; to teach the existence of 
God and a future life with money taken from Atheists and 
Agnostics. ' ' There are many just such conscientious and justice- 
loving Christians in this country. 

While other nations of the world are endeavoring to free 
themselves from the control of the church, we seem to be in- 
viting it to participate in the administration of our laws. 

In France the concordat or treaty by which the state and 
the church were bound to each other, and which has existed 
from the days of the first Napoleon till now, is on the eve of 
repeal. 

The Secretary of the French navy has recently been rep- 
rimanded for ordering religious services on board the men- 
of-war, and at naval stations on a Catholic holiday. 

This is in conspicuous contrast with the firing of salutes by 
a detachment of the Louisiana field artillery in November 
last in honor of the crowning of the statue to the Virgin Mary 
in New Orleans. 

Great Britain declares through her enlightened Queen, that 
" all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the 
law." 

Rev. Dr. Parker of London repudiates the idea of making 
the Kingdom of Christ " a branch of the civil service." 

Senor Castelar, in Spain, a few years since, said that "sci- 
ence and learning must be free from both state and church 
tyranny." 

Germany has lately adopted a new code of laws, by 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 327 

which that nation refused to recognize Ecclesiastical mar- 
riages. 

The Hungarian government has recently enacted laws favor- 
ing religious equality, civil marriage, and other reforms, in spite 
of the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church. 

London Truth says : "Austria has been passing some new 
laws to prevent the interference of the clerical power in poli- 
tics." 

Italy is noted for the growing secularity of her government. 

Mexico is far in advance of the United States in making that 
country free from Ecclesiastical control. Her constitution pro- 
vides for the most absolute independence of the state and the 
church. It abolishes the religious oath. It will not permit the 
establishment of monasteries. The people of Mexico, realizing 
the danger to the state of the efforts of the church to control 
the state, confiscated, in 1867, $300,000,000 of church property, 
converting the same to schoolhouses, libraries, museums and 
other useful purposes. 

"America (the United States) presents the anomaly of a 
republican government and a monarchical religion." — ( Tacoma 
Church Record.} 

The religious assume that if they are tolerant of the non- 
religious, that is all that can be required of them ; but the non- 
religious ask no favors of the religious ; they demand equal 
rights and the same liberty that is enjoyed by the religious. 

The late Rev. Dr. Schoff says : " Toleration is a concession, 
but liberty is a right ; toleration is a matter of expediency, but 
liberty is a principle." 

Mirabeau says : "There is no crime like the crime against 
the freedom of the people." 

De Tocqueville says : " The church commends herself best 
to the world by attending to her proper spiritual duties and 
keeping aloof from political and secular complications." 

The people of the south had secretly, but determinedly, 
prepared for war against the Union, and but few of the people 
of the north had knowledge of those preparations. So now, 
but few of us are aware of the secret, but determined, effort 



328 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

of the Christian Church against the liberties of the people. 
All over the country these religious fanatics, these treasonable 
Catilines, are at work in the interest of that worse than a slave 
oligarchy — a religious autocracy. 

We do not realize that we may be on the eve of witnessing 
the destruction of the most valuable inheritance which has 
come down to us from the patriots of the revolution. This in- 
heritance — independence of kingcraft and of priestcraft — then 
secured, has no parallel in the blessings bestowed on any 
people. The liberty, then achieved, is priceless. 

Col. Ingersoll says : ' ' Liberty cannot be sacrificed . 
for the sake of anything. It is of more value than anything 
else. . . . Liberty sustains the same relation to all our 
virtues that the sun does to life. The world had better go 
back to barbarism, to the dens, to the caves and lairs of 
savagery ; better lose all art, all invention, than to lose liberty. 
Liberty is the breath of progress ; it is the seed and soil, the 
heat and rain, of love and joy." 

The intensity of Jefferson's devotion to liberty may be 
illustrated by his saying, "A republic needs a rebellion every 
twenty years to keep alive the spirit of liberty among the 
people." 

And it is this liberty which the Christian Church is engaged 
in an effort to overthrow. The liberty which we thought had 
been secured to us from the foundation of the Republic. Civil 
liberty, which gives everyone the same rights that are pos- 
sessed by everyone else ; religious liberty, the right to wor- 
ship any being that may be regarded as Supreme, or the right 
(also) not to worship ; liberty to the orthodox Christian to ex- 
press his belief in God, the Trinity, the fall of man, the inspira- 
tion of the Bible, the existence of a devil, of a heaven and a 
hell, and the sacredness of Sunday ; liberty to the Jew and 
to the Unitarian to reject the doctrine of the deification of 
Christ ; liberty to the Seventh-Day Baptist and the Hebrew 
to deny that the first day of the week is a sacred day ; 
liberty to tire Agnostic to deny that there is satisfactory 
evidence of the infallibility of the Bible, of the existence of 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 329 

a personal embodiment of evil, of a future state, or of a Su- 
preme being. 

Will the people of this country abjectly submit to that most 
tyrannical of yokes, the Christian Church ? 

Will they become the slaves of the worst oligarchy which 
ever existed — the oligarchy of Ecclesiasticism ? 

Are the mouths of independent thinkers, of investigators, 
of students of knowledge, of teachers of truth, of naturalists, 
of scientists, to be closed by the ignorant, superstitious be- 
lievers in a false and degrading religion, and without resist- 
ance? 

Are the scenes of imprisonment and of torture and of death, 
which this same Christian religion instigated, in other centuries, 
to be re-enacted in the closing years of the nineteenth century, 
and without protest? 

Are our astronomers, geologists and biologists, who offend 
believers in the Mosaic teachings, of a flat earth and of its 
limited duration and its restrictions as to the age of vegetable 
and animal life, to be dragged to dungeons, and without re- 
sistance ? 

Are the people of this nation, whose love of liberty is the 
life of their being, quietly to submit to the consequences of 
such laws as the fanaticism of Christianity shall direct to be 
made ? 

Many times more determined than the resistance to the 
tyranny of Great Britain and also to the arrogance of the slave 
power, will be our determined effort at resistance to the tyranny 
and slavery which Christianity will impose upon us — if, only, 
it has the power. 

No human foresight can predict what, in all probability, 
will equal in cruelty and carnage what is recorded in the 
combined pages of the history of all the (almost countless) 
wars which the church has inaugurated and prosecuted to crush 
the independent judgment, the freedom of thought, the liberty 
of expression, on matters as to which there is not a scintilla of 
knowledge. 

The apprehensions here excited are no overdrawn pictures, 



330 THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 

but are fully justified by the experience of the past and by the 
spirit which pervades the Christian church to-day. 

Listen to the arrogant utterance of the Christian Observer : 
" When Christians have the power, they have the right." 

As Samuel P. Putnam has said : ' ' Let us learn the lessons 
of history and be watchful over the priceless inheritance of 
liberty." 

Henry Ward Beecher said : ' ' Of all governments, there is 
no other so bad as the government of an Ecclesiastical class." 

Parson Brownlow said: "The worst class of men are 
preachers." 

The New York Tribune has said : ' ' The worst despotisms 
that ever cursed the world were administered in the name, and 
by the assumed authority of God." 

William Howitt, a Christian writer, in England, says : " The 
barbarities and outrages of the, so-called, Christian race, 
throughout every region of the world and upon every people 
that they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by 
those of any other race, however fierce or untaught, or reckless 
of mercy or shame, in any age of the world." 

That ripe scholar and earnest patriot, Francis Ellingvvood 
Abbott, addressing the "Free Religious Association" at 
Boston, said: "I see an irrepressible conflict between the 
Christian and the modern world, which has got to be fought 
out here in America. . . . The moneyed institutions of 
that Church are vast ; its social influence is enormous ; its 
slumbering power for evil is beyond all estimate. . . . The 
American civilization and the American government have a 
domestic enemy, in the Christian church, to be compared only 
to the great slave power of the south. What the anti-slavery 
society did to the south, this association is doing to the Church, 
awakening and exasperating an enemy whose hand may yet be 
raised against the nation's life. . . . The incongruity of 
American government and American religion is forcing itself 
on millions of minds. Freedom in either means freedom in 
both. . . . Jhere is a practical absurdity to be got rid of 
— the absurdity of maintaining a despotic religion in a free 



THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER. 331 

country. , . . Shall the natural law of reason, or the 
arbitrary law of Christianity govern ? . . . Religious liberty 
in America must do battle for its very existence. ... I 
appeal to Christians to make no further efforts to fan into 
flame the dangerous fires of religious bigotry ; for the con- 
flagration, once kindled, they will be powerless to control." 

W. F. Jamieson, author of the valuable work entitled, The 
Clergy a Source of Danger to the American Republic, says : 
" Christianity is not only foreign, but antagonistic to American 
liberty. Either Christianity or a people's free government 
must fall. Which shall it be ? Let Liberty be overthrown in 
America and where would it dare to raise its head ? ' ' 

Will Christians persist in the folly and madness of defying 
those, in whose minds have been inculcated a fervent longing 
for liberty, an intense consciousness of right, a thorough be- 
lief in political and religious equality, an ardent love of 
justice and an undying conviction of the (ultimate) triumph of 
truth ? 

As Mr. T. B. Wakeman has said : (l The question will have 
to be tried out, which is the real government of the people — 
the Republic or the Church? " 

Will this great Republic survive the contest ? 

The issue is the life of the Nation ! 



Peter Eckler, Publisher, New York. 



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Prove all Things by the Light of Reason. 



6 Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 

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p AITH and ReaSOn. Account of the Christian and all Prominent 

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in the sperits first," says his Riv'rence ; "and then put in the sugar; and 
remember, every dhrop of wather you put in after that, spoils the punch." 
" Glory be to God ! " says the Pope, not minding a word Father Tom was 
saying. " Glory be to God !" says he, smacking his lips. " I never knewn 
what dhrink was afore," says he. "It bates the Lachymalchrystal out ov 
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Force and Matter: OR . principles of the natural 

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Four Hundred Years of Freethought. BySamueip. 

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Four Hundred Years of Freethought embraces the most Illustrious Pages 
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and what is already won must be carefully guarded. Eternal vigilance is the 
price of liberty ; and from the Past we must ever learn Great Lessons for the 
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GARDENER (HELEN H.) Men, Women, and 
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Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 7 

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HAECKEL (ERNST.) The History of Creation ; 
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Visit tO Ceylon. With Portrait, and Map of India and Ceylon. 

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Half Hours with some Celebrated Freethinkers. 

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This Catalogue contains the Standard Works of the Think- 
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History of a False Religion (Bulwer), & Origin of 

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History Of Charles XII. With a Life of Voltaire. By Lord 
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H istOry Of Christianity. Comprising all that relates to the Christian 
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and other scholars. "This important work contains Gibbon's complete 
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showing when, where and how Christianity originated ; who were its founders ; 
and what were the sentiments, character, manners, numbers and condition of 
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and numerous Engravings of mythological divinities. 864 pp. , crown 8vo. 
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History Of England, in the Eighteenth Century. Leckey. 2 vols., 
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History, of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe. 
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HlStOry Of Materialism. By F. A. Lange. In 3 volumes. 
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History of the Christian Religion. By judge c. b. waite. 

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History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 

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History of the Egyptian Religion. By Dr. c. p. Tide, of 

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History of the First Council of Nice: a worlds christian 

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History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. 

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The Best Books ever Written and Published. 



Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 9 

Horae Sabbaticae ; Or an Attempt to Correct Certain Superstitious 
and Vulgar Errors Respecting the Sabbath. By Godfrey Higgins. Author 
of Celtic Druids ; Apology for Mahomet the Illustrious ; Anacalyps*s, or an 
Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations, and Religions. In Hora 
Sabbatical the Christian Sabbath, or the Sunday is shown, in the words of 
our learned author, " to be a human, not a divine institution — a festival, not 
a day of humiliation — to be kept by all consistent Christians with joy and 
gladness, like Christmas Day and Easter Sunday, and not like Ash Wednes- 
day and Good Friday." Preface by Peter Eckler. Post 8vo., 81 pages. 
Paper, 25 cts Extra vellum cloth, 50 cts. 

HUgO'S Oration On Voltaire. Delivered at Paris, May 30, 1878. 

the one hundredth anniversary of Voltaire's Death. Translated by James 
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Huxley (Thomas H.) Works : 

Man's Place in Nature $1.25 

On the Origin of Species 1.00 

More Criticisms on Darwin, and Admin- 

TRATIVE NIHILI -M 5 o cts. 

A Manual of the Anatomy of Vertebrated 

ANIMALS. Illustrated 2.50 

A Manual of the Anatomy of Inverte- 

BRATED ANIMALS. Illustrated 2 . 5 o 

Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews 175 

Critiques and Addresses 1.50 

American Addresses 1.25 

Physiography 2 . 50 

The Crayfish i. 75 

Science and Culture 1.50 

The Advance of Science Paper, 25 cts. 

Essays Upon Some Controverted Ques- 

TIONS $2.00 

Hypatia. B y Charles Kingsley Cloth, $1.00 

INGERSOLLCROB'T G.) Gods& other Lectures. 

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Heresies Paper, 50c; cloth, fl. 00 

GhostS and Other Lectures. Including The Ghosts, Lib- 
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Farming in Illinois, Speech nominating James G. Blaine for Presidency in 
1876, The Grant Banquet, A Tribute to Rev. Alex. Clark, The Past Rises before 
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— Some Mistakes of Moses. 27o PP paper, 50c; cioth, $1.00 

Interviews On Talmage. Being Six Interviews with the 

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Blasphemy. Argument by R. G. Ingersoll in the Trial of C. B 

Reynolds, at Morristown, N. J Paper, 25c; cloth, 50c 

Books that have World Wide Reputation. 



lo Peter Eckler, Publisher, New York. 

Ingersoll (R.G.) What Must we do to be Saved? 

Analyzes the so-called gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and de- 
votes a chapter each to the Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyte- 
rians, Evangelical Alliance, and answers the question of the Christians as to 
what he proposes instead of Christianity— the religion of swcrd and fit me. 
Paper 25 cents. 

Prose-Poems and Selections. Fifth edition, enlarged 

and revised. A handsome quarto, containing 383 pages. This is, beyond ques- 
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make it the thing of beauty it is. The type is large and clear, the paper heavy, 
highly c^leniered, and richly tinted, the presswork faultless, and the binding 
as perfect as the best materials and skill can make it. 

As to the contents, it is enough to say that they include all of the choicest utterancea 
of the greatest writer on the topics treated that has ever lived. 

Those who have not the good fortune to own all of Mr. Ingersoll's published works, 
will have in this book of selections many bright sarrples of his lofty thought, his 
matchless eloquence, his wonderful imagery, and his epigrammatic and poetic 
power. The collection includes all of the " Tributes " that have become farrcu* 
in literature— notably those to his brother E. C. Ingereoll. Lincoln, Grant, 
Beecher, Conklin, Courtlandt M. Palmer, Mary Fiske. Elizur Wright: his peer- 
less monographs on "The Vision of War,' Love. Liberty, Art and Morality, 
Science, Nature, The Imagination, Decoration Day Oration, What is Pcetry. 
Music of Wagner, Origin and Destiny, "Leaves of Grass," and on the great 
heroes of intellectual Liberty. Besides the^e there are innumerable gems taken 
here and there from the orations, speeches, arguments, toasts, lectures, letters 
interviews, and dav by day conversations of the author. 

The book is designed for, and will be accepted by, admiring friends as a rare per- 
sonal souvenir. To help it serve this purpose, a fine steel portrait, with auto- 
granh fac-simile, has been prepared especially for it In the more elegant styles 
of binning it is eminently suited for presentation purposes, for any season or 
occasion. 

Prices.— In cloth, beveled boards, gilt edges, $2.50 ; in half morocco, gilt edges, $5 : 
in half calf, mottled edges, library stvle, $4.50 ; in full Turkey morocco, gilt 
exquisitely fine, $7.50; in full tree calf, highest possible finish. $9. 

Cheaper edition from same plates $1.50 

Volume 1. Ingersoll's Lectures. New edition. Only 
authorized. Large octavo, wide margins, good paper, large 
type. Contents : 
The Gods ; Humboldt; Individuality: Thomas Paine ; Heretics and Heresies. 
The Ghosts ; The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child ; The Centennial Oration, 
or Declaration of Independence, Tuly 4th, 1876. What I Know About Farming 
in Illinois ; Speech at Cincinnati in 1876, nominating James G. Blaine for the 
Presidency ; The Past Rises Before Me ; or, Vision of "War. an extract from a 
Speech made at the Soldiers and Sailors Reunion at Indianapolis, Indiana, 
Sept. 21, 1876 ; A Tribute to Ebon C. Ingersoll ; The Grant Banquet ; Crimes 
Against Criminals ; Tribute to the Rev. Alexander Clarke. Some Mistakes of 
Moses ; What Must We Do to be Saved ? Blasphemy, Argument in the trial of 
C B. Revnolds. Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons bv 
the R.ev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D ; to which is added a Talmagian Catechism, 
and four Prefaces, which contain some of Mr. Ingersoll's wittiest and brightest 
sayings. 

Containing 1431 pages, bound in cloth, gold back and side stamps. 
Price, post-paid, $3.50. Half morocco. $5. Full sheep, law style, $5 

This is an entirely new edition and a handsomely proportioned book. 

Volume II. Will follow soon, containing all of his latest letlures- 

Ingersoll's Liberty in Literature. Testimonial to wait 

Whitman. "Let us put wreaths on the brows of the living." An address 
delivered in Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 1890, with Portrait of Whitman. Also 
contains the funeral oration .'. Paper, 25 cents ; cloth, 50 cents 

Thomas Paine's Vindication, a Reply to the New York 

Observer's Attack upon the Anthor-hero of the Revolution, by R. G. Ingersoll. 

Paper 15cts 

Limitations Of Toleration. A Discussion between Col- 
Robert G. Ingersoll, Hon. Frederick R. Coudert, and Ex-Governor Stewart L. 
Woodford Paper, 10 cent* 

These Works are not for a Day, butlfor all Time. 



Catalogue of Liberal Classics. u 

IngerSOll (R. G.) Orthodoxy, A Lecture Paper, 10 cents. 

Civil Rights Speech. With Speech of Hon. Fred'k Douglass. 

Paper 10 cents. 

Crimes Against Criminals. Delivered before the New 

York State Bar Association, at Albany, N. Y M Jan. 21, 189a Paper, 10 cts. 

Lithograph of R. G. IngersoIl. 22x28 inch., heavy 

plate paper 60 cts. 

Photographs of Col. IngersoIl. isx24,$5.oo. impe- 
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home picture,) 85 cts 

AbOUt the Holy Bible. Just out. A new Lecture About 

the Holy Bible Paper, 25 cents- 

Shakespeare. IngersolTs Great Lecture on Shakespeare, with a 

rare and handsome half-tone picture of the Kesselstadt Death Mask. .Paper, 25c 

Lecture on Abraham Lincoln. Just out with a 

handsome, new portrait Paper, 25 cents. 

Voltaire S A Lecture. By Robert G. IngersoIl, with a Portrait of 

the great French Philosopher and Poet, never before published. .Paper, 25 c. 

The Great IngersoIl Controversy, containing the 

Famous Christmas Sermon, by Colonel R. Q. IngersoIl. the indignant protests 
thereby evoked from ministers of various denominations, and Col. Ingersoll's 
replies to the same. A work of tremendous interest to every thinking man and 
woman Paper, 25 cts. 

IS Suicide a Sin? "Something Brand New!" IngersolTs 

startling, brilliant and thrillingly eloquent letters, which created such a sen- 
sation when published in the New York World, together with the replies of 
famous clergymen and writers, a verdict from a jury of eminent men of New 
York, Curious Pacts About Suicides, celebrated essays and opinions of noted 
men and an astonishing and original chapter, Great Suicides of History ! 
Paper 25 cts - 

Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child. Just out 

A Lecture. Paper, 25 cts. 

Patriotic Addresses. By coi. Robt g. ingersoii, re- 
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TION-DAY ORATION, in New York, May 30, 1882. Paper, 25 cts. 

Which Way ? A Lecture, by Robert G. IngersoIl. Paper, 25 cts. 

Some ReaSOnS Why. A Lecture, by R. G. IngersoIl. Pa. 25c 

Myth and Miracle. A Lecture, by R. G. IngersoIl. Pa. 25c 

The Foundations of Faith. ByR. g. ingersoii. p a 25 c 

— — The Field-Ingersoll Discussion, faith or ag- 
nosticism. From the North American Review. Paper, 25 cts. 

Ingersoll-Gladstone Controversy on Christianity. 

From the North American Review. Paper, 25 cts. 

The Christian Religion. From the North American Re- 
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HOW tO Reform Mankind. A Lecture. Paper, 25 cts 

Image Breaker. By John E. Remsburg. Contents; The Decline of 
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The Best Thoughts of the Greatest Minds. 



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Intellectual Development of Europe. By John w. Draper. 

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Infidel Death Beds. By G. W. Foote. Beirjg true accounts of the 
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Giordano Bruno, Henry Thomas Buckle, Lord Byron, Richard Carlisle, 
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Volume II. contains : Rights of Man in two Parts, (Part I. being an Answer 
to Burke's Attack on the French Revolution ; Part II. contains Principle and 
Practice) ; Letter to Abbe Sieyes ; To the Authors of the Republican ; Letter 
Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation ; Letters to Lord 
Onslow; Dissertation on First Principles of Government; Letters to Mr. 
Secretary Dundas; Speech in the French National Convention; Reasons 
for Sparing the Life of Louis Capet; Letter to the People of France ; On the 
Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI. to Trial ; Speech in the National Conven- 
tion on the Question, " Shall or shall not a Respite of the Sentence of Louis 
XVI. take place ?'' To the People of France and the French Armies ; Decline 
and Fall of the English System of Finance ; Agrarian Justice, etc. 

Life Of Thomas Paine. By the editor of the National, with Preface 
and Notes by Peter Eckler. Illustrated with views of the Old Paine Home- 
stead and Paine Monument at New Rochelle ; also, portraits of the most 
Erominent of Paine's friends in Europe and America. As "a man is known 
y the company he keeps," these portraits of Paine's associates are in them- 
selves a sufficient refutation of the wicked libels against Paine that have so 
long disgraced sectarian literature. Post 8vo, paper 50 cts.; cloth 75 cts. 

Paine'S Vindication. A Reply to the New York Observer's attack 
upon the Author-hero of the Revolution, by R. G. Ingersoll. Paper, 15 cts 



Paine's Complete Works. 

A Superb Edition ! 

THE RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL, THE 
POLITICAL, THE POETICAL, AND THE 
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS of THOMAS 
PAINE, together with his BIOGRAPHY, by 
Thomas Clio Hickman, and the Editor of "The 
National." 

IES r " Five Beautiful, Illustrated volumes, boxed. Crown 8vo., brown vellum 
cloth, gilt leather titles, $5.00. 

This choice edition is printed on fine paper, from large, clear type, and is 
neatly and substantially bound. For accuracy and completeness this edition 
is not excelled by the editions sold at treble the price. 



Political Works of Thomas Paine, Complete, in two 

vols., containing over 500 pp. each, with portrait and many illustrations. 
Crown 8vo., brown vellum cloth, gilt leather titles, $1.00 per vol. 

Vol. I. contains: Common Sense and the Epistle to the Quakers; The 
Crisis, (the 16 Numbers Complete) ; A Letter to the Abbe Raynal ; Letter 
from Paine to Washington ; Letter from Washington to Paine ; Dissertation 
on Government, the Affairs of the Bank and Paper Money ; Prospects on the 
Rubicon ; or, an Investigation into the Causes and Consequences of the Poli- 
tics to be agitated at the next Meeting of Parliament ; Public Good, being an 
Examination into the claim of Virginia to the Western Territory, etc. 

Vol. II. contains: Rights of Man in two Parts, (Part I. being an Answe 
to Burke's Attack on the French Revolution ; Part II. contains Principle and 
Practice) ; Letter to Abbe Sieyes ; To the Authors of the Republican ; Letter 
Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation ; Letters to Lord 
Onslow ; Dissertation on First Principles of Government ; Letters to Mr. 
Secretary Dundas ; Speech in the French National Convention ; Reasons 
for Sparing the Life of Louis Capet ; Letter to the People of France ; On the 
Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI. to Trial ; Speech in the National Conven- 
tion on the Question, "Shall or shall not a Respite of the Sentence of Louis 
XVI. take place ?" To the People of France and the French Armies ; Decline 
and Fall or the English System of Finance ; Agrarian Justice, etc. 



Theological and Religious Works of Thos. Paine 

COMPLETE. Comprising the Age of Reason — an Investigation of True 
and Fabulous Theology; An Examination of the Prophecies of the coming of 
Jesus Christ ; The Books of Mark, Luke and John ; Contrary Doctrines in the 
New Testament between Matthew and Mark; An Essay on Dreams; 
Private Thoughts on a Future State ; A Letter to the Hon. Thomas 
Erskine; Religious Year of the Theophilanthropists ; Precise History 
of the Theophilanthropists ; A Discourse Delivered to the Society of 
Theophilanthropists at Paris; A Letter to Camille Jordan ; Origin of Free- 
masonry ; The Names in the Book of Genesis ; Extract from a Replv 
to the Bishop of Llandaff ; The Book of Job; Sabbath or Sunday; Future 
State ; Miracles ; An Answer to a Friend on the Publication of the Age 
of Reason; Letters to Samuel Adams and Andrew A. Dean; Remarks 
on Robert Hall's Sermons ; The word Religion ; Cain and Abel ; The 
Tower of Babel ; To Members of the Society styling itself the Missionary 
Society; Religion of Deism; The Sabbath Day of Connecticut ; Ancient 
History ; Bishop Moore ; John Mason ; Books of the New Testament ; Deism 
and the Writings of Thomas Paine, etc. The work has also a fine Portrait of 
Paine, as Deputy to the National Convention in France, and portraits of 
Samuel Adams, Thomas Erskine. Camille Jordan. Richard Watson, and 
other illustrations. One vol., Crown 8vo., brown vellum cloth, gilt leather 
title, 432 pages. Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. 

This Library is the Pride of every Thinker. 



Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 23 

Paine's Poetical and Miscellaneous Works com- 

PL/ETE. Containing Introduction to the first number of the Pennsylvania 
Migazine; The Snowdrop and Critic; The Pennsylvania Magazine; 
Liberty Tree; The Death of General Wolfe; Burning of Bachelors' Hall, 
I 775 ; Contentment, or Confession; From the "Castle in the Air" to the 
"Little Corner of the World;" What is Love? Lines Extempore, July, 
1808; Patriotic Song; Sons of Columbia; Land of Love and Liberty; 
Address to Lord Howe ; Korah, Dathan and Abiram ; The Monk and the 
Tew; Farmer Short's Dog, Porter ; " Wise Men from the East;" A Long 
Nosed Friend ; Useful and Entertaining Hints; A Fable of Alexander the 
Great; Cupid and Hvmen ; To Forgetfulness ; Life and Death of Lord 
Clive; Case of the Officers of Excise; Salarv of the Officers of Excise, 
Evils Arising from Poverty ; Qualifications 'of Officers ; Petition to the 
Board of Excise; Letter to Dr. Goldsmith ; To a Friend in Philadelphia; 
On the Utility of Iron Bridges ; On the Construction of Iron Bridges; To 
the Congress of the United States ; To a Friend ; Anecdote of Lord Malms- 
bury ; To Thomas Clio Rickman ; Preface to General Lee's Memoirs ; To a 
Gentleman at New York; The Yellow Fever; Letter to a Friend ; Address 
and Declaration; To Elihu Palmer; Thomas Paine at Seventy; Letters to 
George Washington ; Memorial of Thomas Paine to Mr. Monroe ; Letters to 
tie Citizens of the United States; Of the Old and New Testament; Com- 
munication; To the Editor of the Prospect; Religious Intelligence ; Re- 
marks by Mr. Paine ; Address from Bordentown ; To the English People 
on the Invasion of England ; To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana ; To 
the Citizens of "Pennsylvania on the Proposal for a Convention ; Of Consti- 
tutions, Governments, and Charters ; Remarks on the Political and Military 
Affairs of Europe ; Of the English Navy ; Remarks on Gov. Lewis's Speech 
to the Legislature at Albany ; Of Gunboats ; Ships of War, Gunboats, and 
Fortifications ; Remarks on Mr. Hale's Resolutions at Albany ; Letters to 
Morgan Lewis on the Prosecution of Thomas Farmer ; On the Question, 
Will there be War? On Louisiana and Emmissaries ; A Challenge to the 
Federalists to Declare their Principles ; Libertv of the Press ; Of the Affairs 
of England ; To the People of New York ; Reply to Cheetham ; The Emis- 
sary Cullen or Caroenter ; Communication on Cullen ; Federalists Beginning 
to Reform ; To a Friend of Peace ; Reprimand to James Cheetham ; Cheet- 
ham and his Tory Paper ; The Emissarv Cheetham ; To the Federal 
Faction; Memorial to Congress; To Congress. One volume, Crown 8 vo., 
brown vellum cloth, gilt leather title, $1.00. 

Biography of Thomas Paine, by thomas clio rickman, 

the intimate and life-long friend of Paine,— who respected and honored the 
" Author-Hero of the Revolution " for his brilliant talents and unchanging 
devotion to the cause- of civil liberty and mental freedom ; and who loved 
him for his sterling merits, his generous impulses, his unselfish character, 
and noble conduct. It was at the home of Mr. Rickman, in Upper Mary-le- 
Bone street, London, that Mr. Paine met and made the acquaintance of 
Mary Wo^lstonecraft, John Home Tooke. Dr. Priestly, Dr. Towers, Romney, 
the painter, Sharp, the engraver, Col. Oswald, and' other celebrated Eng- 
lish reformers. To this biography is added 

The Life Of Thomas Paine, bv the editor of the National, with 
Preface and Notes by Peter Eckler. The work is Illustrated with views 
of the Old Paine Homestead and Paine Monument at New Rochelle ; with 
a fine portrait of Thomas Paine, engraved by Mr. Sharp from the portrait 
of Paine painted by Romnev, which is endorsed by Mr. Rickman "as a 
true likeness ;" also, with a full page illustration of the handwriting and 
signature of Mr. Paine, copied from a letter Paine addressed to Rickman, 
dated New York, July 12, '06. 

The work also contains portraits of the most prominent of Paine's friends and 
acquaintances in Europe and America, among whom are the following 
C. F. Volney ; Thomas Clio Rickman ; Oliver Goldsmith ; Joel Barlow ; Dr. 
Toseph Priestley ; Benjamin Franklin; Mary Woolstonecraft ; John Home 
"Tooke; Brissot; Condorcet : Madame Roland; Tames Monroe; Danton ; 
Marat ; M. De La Favette ; Thomas Jefferson ; Robespierre ; George Wash- 
ington, and Napoleon Bonaparte. A view is given of the Temple, (the 
dismal fortress in which Louis XVI. was confined previous to his exe- 
cution,') and also a view of the death scene of Marat with a portrait of 
Charlotte Corday, his executioner. A portrait is also given of Rouget de 
Lisle, with a correct version in French of the Marseillaise Hymn, with the 
musical notes of the same, which, as Lamartine tells us, "rustled like a flag 
dipped in gore, still reeking in the battle plain : It made one tremble." 

One volume, Crown 8 vo., brown vellum cloth, gilt leather title, $1.00. 

Books for the Intellectual World. 



24 Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 

Profession of Faith of the Vicar of Savoy. By j r. 

Rousseau. Also, A SEARCH FOR TRUTH, by Olive Schreiner. Preface 
by Peter Eckler. Post 8vo, 128 pages, with Portrait.. ..Paper 25 c. ; cloth, 50 c. 

Proofs Of Evolution. By Nelson C. Parshall. Those who are de- 
sirous of grasping the theory of evolution in the easiest manner and in the 
shortest time cannot do better than to familiarize themselves with the contents 
of this little book. i2mo, 70 pp Cloth, 50 cts. 

Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms, a study in Experimental 

Psychology. By Alfred Binet. Translation from the French with the 
sanction of the author. Treating of the following subjects: 1. The Psychol- 
ogy of the Cell — Introductory. 2. The Structural and Psychological Char- 
acter of Proto-Organisms ; Motory and Sensory Organs. 3. The Psychology 
of Nutrition : Holophytic, Saprophytic and Animal Nutrition ; Predatory 
Habits of Certain Animalcula. 4. Colonies of Unicellular Organisms. 
5. Fecundation of Proto-Organisms. 6. Fecundation of Higher Animals 
and Plants. 7. The Physiological Function of the Nucleus. 8. Corre- 
spondence between Alfred Binet and Ch. Richet (professor of physiology in 
the Faculty of Medicine at Paris) respecting cellular psychology. 161 \o, 
135 PP Paper, 50 cts. ; cloth, 75 cts. 

Psychology Of Attention. ByTh. Ribot, professor of Compara- 
tive and Experimental Psychology at the College of France, and editor o f 
the Revue Philosop/iigue. Authorized translation. Treating of the following 
topics: 1. Spontaneous, or Natural, Attention. — «, Emotional states; b, 
Physical Manifestations; c. Surprise. 2. Voluntary, or Artificial Attention. 
a, Its mechanism ; b, Inhibition ; c, The feeling of effort. 3. The Morbid 
States of Attention. — a, Distraction; b, Hypochondria; c, Fixed Ideas and 
Ecstasy ; d, Idiocy ; e, Attention in sleep and hypnosis Cloth, 75 cts. 

RELIGIOUS and Theological Works of Paine 
Complete. One vol., post 8vo., 432 pp Paper, 50 cts. ; cloth, $1.00 

Radical Pulpit. Discourses of Advanced Thought. By O. B. Froth- 
ingham and Felix Adler $1.00 

Researches in Oriental History, Embracing the origin of 

the Jews, the Rise and Development of Zoroastrianism, and the Derivation 
of Christianity ; to which is added. Whence our Aryan Ancestors ? By 
George W. Brown, M.D. Parti. Researches in Jewish History; ten chap- 
ters. Part II. Researches in Zoroastrianism ; thirteen chapters. Part III. 
Derivation of Christianity ; twenty chapters. Part IV. Whence came the 
Aryans ? five chapters. Price, elegantly bound Cloth, $1.50 

Reign Of the StoiCS. Their History, Religion, Philosophy, Maxims 
of Self-Control, Self-Culture, Benevolence, and Justice. By F. M. Holland. 
Price $1.00 

Religion and the Bible. By F. D. Cummings. A series of six- 
teen Freethought Essays. Subjects : Introduction. I. The God and Man 
of the Bible. II. God and the Devil. III. Is the Bible Contradictory. IV. 
Jesus— Was He the Fulfillment of Hebrew Prophecy and Expectancy ? V. 
Jesus the Teacher of Righteousness ? VI. Did the Disciples Look for an 
Immediate Resurrection ? VII. What does the Bible Teach Regarding the 
Second Coming- of Christ ? VIII. The Christ Spirit Outside the Bible. IX. 
What is the Bible ? X. How Man Advances. XI. Why do Men Cling to 
the Bible? XII. Belief, Unbelief, Faith. Reason, and Prayer. XIII. Is 
There a God ? XIV. Reward and Punishment. XV. Immortality. XVI. 
Conclusion. A book that should be in the hands of all who seek the light. 
Price Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00 

The Liberal Classics should be in every Library. 



Peter Eckler, Publisher, New York. 25 

Reasons for Unbelief, by Louis Viardot. Translated from the 
French. This volume is an analysis, an abstract, an epitome of the 
reasons given by the greatest writers of all ages for disbelief in supernat- 
ural religions. The arguments are clear, concise, convincing and conclusive. 
They are founded on reason and science, and rise to the dignity of 
demonstrations. The book will prove a priceless treasure to all enquiring 

minds Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 50 cts. 

" It is a good book, and will do good." — Robert G. Ingersoll. 

Renan (Ernest) The Life of jesus cioth, $1.00 

English Conferences 75 cts. 

Rights Of Man. Parts I and II. Being an answer to Burke's attack 
upon the French Revolution. A work almost without a peer. Post 8vo, 279 
pages Paper, 25c; cloth, 50 cts. 

Rochefoucauld's Moral Maxims, containing 54 i Maxims 

and Moral Sentences, by Francis, Duke of Rochefoucald ; together with 144 
Maxims and Reflections by Stanislaus, King of Poland. Also Maxims to live 
by, and Traits of Moral Courage in every-day life. i2mo, 186 pages, 

Cloth 75 cts. 

" As Rochefoucald his maxims drew 
From Nature,— I believe them true. 
They argue no corrupted mind 
In him— the fault is in mankind !" — Swift. 

RoUSSeaU (Jean JaCQUeS.) The Social Contract, or Principles of 
Political Law. Also, A Project for a Perpetual Peace. Preface by Peter Eckler. 
One vol., post 8vo, 238 pages, with portrait Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, 75 cts. 

The writings of Rousseau, says Thomas Paine, in his Rights of Man, contain 
" a loveliness of sentiment in favor of Liberty that excites respect and ele- 
vates the human faculties." 
He was the most directly revolutionary of all the speculative precursors. His 
writings produced that glow of enthusiastic feeling in France, which led to 
the all-important assistance rendered by that country to the American colo- 
nists in a struggle so momentous for mankind. It was from his writings 
that the Americans took the ideas and the phrases of their great Charter. 
It was his work more than that of any other one man, that France arose 
from the deadly decay which laid hold of her whole social and political sys- 
tem, and found that irresistible energy which warded off dissolution within, 
and partition from without." — John Morley. 

" He could be cooped up in garrets, laughed at as a maniac, left to starve like a 
wild beast in a cage,— but he could not be hindered from setting the world 
on fire."— Thomas Carlyle. 

Profession of Faith of the Vicar of Savoy. 

By Jean Jacques Rousseau. Also, A Search for Truth, by Olive Schreiner 
Preface by Peter Eckler. Post 8vo, 128 pp., with portrait. . . .Paper, 25 cts 
Vellum cloth 50 cts 

Romances, by M. de Voltaire. A new edition, profusely illus- 
trated. One volume, post 8vo, 480 pages, with Portrait and 82 Illustrations. 
Paper $1.00 ; extra vellum cloth, $1.50; half calf, $4.00 

" I choose that a story should be founded on probability, and not always re- 
semble a dream. I desire to find nothing in it trivial or extravagant ; and I 
desire above all, that under the appearance of fable, there may appear some 
latent truth, obvious to the discerning eye, though it escape the observation 
of the vulgar."— Voltaire. 

Voltaire's satire was as keen and fine pointed as a rapier.— Magazine of Amer 
ican History. 

A delightful reproduction, unique and refreshing.— Boston Commonwealth. 

Ruins of Empires and the Law of Nature. By c. f 

Volney. With Portrait of Volney, Illustrations, and Map of the Astrolog- 
ical Heaven of theAncients. Also, Volney's Answer to Dr. Priestly, a Bio- 
graphical Notice by Count Daru, and an Explanation of the Zodiacal Signs 

and Constellations by Peter Eckler. 248 pp Cloth, 75 cts.; paper, 50 cts. 

half calf $2.00 

Books that have Attracted the Attention of the World. 



26 u Peter Eckler, Publisher, New\York. 

SALT US' Anatomy Of Negation. Intended to convey a 
tableau of anti-Theism from Kapila to Leconte de Lisle. i2mo, 218 pp. 
Cloth n c c t s * 

Sabbath-Breaking. By John E. Remsburg. Origin of the Sabbatic 
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Examination of Sunday Arguments — Origin of the Christian Sabbath- 
Testimony of the Christian Fathers — The Sabbath during the Middle Ages 
— The Puritan Sabbath — Testimony of Christian Reformers, Scholars and 
Divines — Abrogation of Sunday Laws 25 cts. 

Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. 

(History of.) By Henry C. Lea Cloth, $4.50 

Safe Side. A Theistic Refutation of the Divinity of Christ. By Richard 
M. Mitchell Cloth, $1.50 

Sage and the Atheist (The), with Introduction, including the Ad- 
ventures of Johnny, a Young Englishman, by Donna Las Nalgas. Also, 
THE PRINCESS OF BABYLON. Royal Contest for the Hand of 
Formosanta ; The King of Babylon convenes his Council and Consults the 
Oracle ; Royal Festival Given in Honor of the Kingly Visitors ; Formosanta 
Begins a Journey ; Aldea Elopes with the King of Scythia ; Formosanta 
Visits China and Scythia in Search of Amazan ; Amazan Visits Albion ; 
An Unfortunate Adventure in Gaul, etc., by M. de Voltaire Paper, 25 cts. 

Saladin (W. Stewart Ross.) God and m s Book.... cioth, $2.50 
Salem Witchcraft in Outline. A story without the tedious 

detail. By Caroline E. Upham. Illustrated. Paper 75 6ts. 

Schopenhauer (A.) Essays. Translated by T. B. Saunders 

- cioth. : $1.00 

The World as Will and Idea $20.00 

Scientific Works. By Darwin, Haeckel, Huxley, Maudsley, Spencer, 
Tyndall, and others. International Scientific Series, etc. 

Science and Theology. Ancient and Modern. By James Anthony 
Froude Paper, 25 cts. 

Seaver (Horace). Memorial. Containing Col. Ingersoll's Eulogy. 
Cloth $1.00 

Secret Of the Cast. By Prof. Felix L. Oswald Cloth, $1.00 

Shelley's " Queen Mab." A new edition of this beautiful little 
poem from Percy Bysshe Shelley's writings has met with favorable notice by 
Liberals, and by the superstitious bigots of the Established Church it has 
been greatly condemned. In order to give every one an opportunity to read 
it who wishes to, it is now published in neat form and handsome binding at 
this low price 50 cts. 

Short History Of the Bible. Being a popular account of the 
Formation and Development of the Canon. By Bronson C. Keeler. Con- 
tents : The Hebrew Canon ; The New Testament ; The Early Controver- 
sies ; The Books at first not Considered Inspired ; Were the Fathers 
Competent ; The Fathers quoted as Scripture Books which are now called 
Apocryphal; The Heretics; The Christian Canon. Paper, socts.; cloth, 75Cts. 

Sixteen CrUCified SaviOrS : or, Christianity Before Christ. Con- 
taining New, Startling and Extraordinary Revelations in Religious History 
which Disclose the Oriental Origin of all the Doctrines, Principles, Precepts 
and Miracles of the Christian New Testament, and Furnishes a Key for Un- 
locking Many of its Sacred Mysteries, besides Comprising the History of 
Sixteen Oriental Crucified Gods, etc. By Kersey Graves Cloth, $1.50 

Sixteen Saviors Or None ; or, the Explosion of a Great 
Theological Gun. By Kersey Graves. Cloth, 75 cts.; paper 50c. 

No Thinker can be without these Books. 



Catalogue of Liberal Classics. 27 

Smith (Adam), Wealth of Nations. 782 PP $i. so 

Spencer (Herbert.) Works, ^mo. 

First Principles $2.00 

Principles of Biology, avois 4 .oo 

Principles of Psychology. 2 vols 400 

Principles of Sociology. 2 vols 4.00 

Principles of Ethics. 2 vols 4 00 

Essays : Scientific, Political, and Speculative- 

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Social StatiCS. (Revised edition.) 2.00 

Sttldy Of Sociology. (International Scientific Series.)... 1.50 

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Data Of EthiCS. Part I of the " Principles of Ethics."... Paper 50c. 



Cloth $1.25 

The Induction Of EthiCS. The Ethics of Individual Life. 

Parts II and III of " Principles of Ethics " in one vol. i2mo $1.25 

JUStiCC Part IV of the " Principles of Ethics " 1.25 

Negative Beneficence and Positive Benefi- 

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The Factors of Organic Evolution. i2mo, cio. .75 

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Some Mistakes Of MoSeS. Free Schools, The Fall, Dampness, 
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Study of Primitive Christianity. By Lewis g. janes. 

Octavo, gilt top, uncut edges, 319 pp Cloth, $1.25 

" Dr. Janes is evidently a thorough scholar, and one cannot fail to be impressed with the 
care, the honesty, the faithfulness, the impartiality, the love of truth, the conservatism 
exhibited throughout this admirable volume." — Popular Science Monthly. 

Sunday Under Three Heads. As it is; as sabbath bnis would 

make it ; and as it might be made. By Charles Dickens. Illustrated by 
Phiz. Portrait. Preface by Peter Eckler Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 50 cts 

Superstition in All AgeS. By Jean Meslier. Jean Meslier was a 
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Testament to his parishioners and to the world. Preface by Peter Eckler. 

339 PP- P ortrait. Paper, 50 cts Cloth, $1.00 

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Supernatural Religion. An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine 
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The Books that have Crushed Superstition. 



T 



28 Peter Eckler, Publisher, New York. 

Syntagma (The.) Being a vindication of the Manifesto of the Chris- 
tian Evidence Society, against the assaults of the Christian Instruction 
Society. By the Rev. Robert Taylor Cloth, $1.00 

ALL OT a HalO. By Morgan A. Robertson. Illustrated. A story 
in verse of trouble in heaven, incidentally illustrating how much more pow- 
erful the Pope is, in the opinion ©f the Romish church, than the Almighty 
himself Paper, 25 cts.-, cloth, 50 cts. 

Talleyrand's Letter to Pope Pius VII. with a Memoir 

and Portrait of the Author, his Famous Maxims, and also an account of his 
Celebrated Visit to Voltaire. 136 pp Paper, 25 cts.; cloth, 50 cts. 

Talmtld (The.) Translated from the original by H. Polano, Professor 
of the Hebrew Language Cloth, $1.00 

Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of 

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Identity of Language and Thought. 3. The Simplicity of Thought. With 
an Appendix which contains a correspondence on "Thought Without 
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Travels in Faith. By Capt. Robert C. Adams. Being the story of his 
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Trial Of Theism. Accused of Obstructing Secular Life. By G. J. 
Holyoake Cloth, $1.00 

Tyndall (Prof. John.) Works : 

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On Sound 2.00 

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Light and Electricity 1.25 

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Hours of Exercise in the Alps 200 

Faraday as a Discoverer 1.00 

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Essays on the Floating Matter of the Air, 

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AUGHN (NATHANIEL.) Priest and Man. By Frederick 
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Vindication of the Rights of Woman, with strictures on 

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Eckler's Library of Liberal Classics are Admitted to be 
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V 



Catalogue oj Liberal Classics. 29 

Vindication of Thomas Paine, a Reply to the New York 

Observer's attack upon the Author-hero of the Revolution, by R. G. Ingersoll. 
Paper 15 cts. 

Visit tO Ceylon. By Ernst Haeckel, professor in the University of 
Jena. Author of The History 0/ Creation, History 0/ the Evolution of Man, 
etc. With Portrait, and Map of India and Ceylon. Translated by Clara 
Bell. 1 vol., post 8vo., 348 pp Extra vellum cloth, $1.00 

Volney's Ruins of Empires and the Law of Na- 

TURE. With Illustrations, Portrait of Volney, and Map of the Astrological 
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Constellations by Peter Eckler. 248 pp Paper, 50 cts. ; cloth, 75 cts. 

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Voltaire (M. de). Works. 

Voltaire's Romances. A New Edition, Profusely Illustrated. 

Contents : The White Bull ; a Satirical Romance. Zadig, or Fate ; an Oriental 
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on Mankind. The World as it Goes. The Black and the White. Memnon 
the Philosopher. Andre Des Touches at Siam. Bababec. The Study of 
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Having no Pleasure. An Adventure in India. Jeannot and Colin. Travels 
of Scarmentado. The Good Bramin. The Two Comforters. Ancient 
Faith and Fable. 1 vol., post 8vo, 480 pp., with Portrait and 82 Illustrations. 
Paper, $1.00 Extra vellum cloth, $1.50 Half calf, $3.00 

Voltaire : A Lecture. By Robert G. Ingersoll, with a portrait of 

the great French Philosopher and Poet, never before published.. ..Paper, 25 c. 

Hugo's (Victor) Oration on Voltaire- French and 

English translation on opposite pages. With the Three Great Poems of 
Goethe, George Eliot and Longfellow 10 cts. 

Philosophical Dictionary. Fifteenth American Edition. 

Two volumes in one. 876 large octavo pages, two elegant steel engravings. 
Sheep $5.00 

Life Of. By James Parton. Portraits and other Illustrations. 2 

vols. , 800 pp $6.00 

Parton's Life of Voltaire.— Every Christian should read Parton's Life of 
Voltaire that he may^know how good and great Voltaire was, and every Infidel 
should read it that he may know how infamous the church has always been. 
In short, everybody should read it, because it is the best, the most delightful, 
artistic, and interesting biography ever written.— R. G. INGERSOLL. 

Pocket Theology. Witty and Sarcastic Definitions of Theo- 
logical Terms 25 cts. 

If! Exile. Memoirs. By B. Gastineau. An Unpublished Corre- 
spondence with Mme. du Chatelet , Paper, 50 cts. 

WAS Christ a God? Conclusions Drawn from Apostolic Writ- 
ings. By F. Mensinga ..$1.50 

What would follow the Effacement of Christianity 

By George Jacob Holyoake. This is a most valuble contribution to Free- 
thought Literature. Bound in paper with good likeness of author 10 cts. 

Complete list of R .G. Ingersoll's Works, the Greatest Mind 
of the 20th Century. 



jo Peter Eckler, Publisher, New York. 

Warfare of Science with Theology. A History of the 

Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. By Andrew 
D. White, LL. D., late President and Professor of History at 

Cornell University. In 2 volumes. 8vo. Cloth $5-°o 

We all'know from a fragment here and another there of general history that 
the church has forever been the opponent of science, that every invention has 
been denounced as the work of the devil, that new ideas have been suppressed 
with instruments of torture, and that the students of nature have uniformly 
been condemned as blasphemers. Professor Draper, in his " Warfare of Re- 
ligion and Science," did the best that has been done up to the time of his death 
to show how belief and knowledge have been arrayed one against the other 
through the bloody centuries of religious domination, but his work may al- 
most be called meagre compared with that of Dr. White. All who can afford 
the luxury will do well to equip their libraries with "The Warfare of Science 
and Theology." They contain an aggregate of nearly one thousand large 
pages ; they bring the warfare up to date and afford a history of the fight be- 
tween evolution and creation not hitherto written. It is likely to be placed on 
the papal Index Expurgatorius, and no doubt the Protestant'church will take 
small pains to encourage its circulation. A war with science is a battle against 
liberty, enlightenment, and human improvement, and this the church has un- 
ceasingly waged. This is undoubtedly one of the great works of this century. 

Wealth Against Commonwealth. By Henry Demarest 

Lloyd. 563 pages, 8vo, cloth, $2.50 ; popular edition $1.00 

This is the most complete history in existence of the great combination of 
brains and capital which still remains the type and model of all tri sts or mon- 
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is perhaps the most influential and most dreaded financial power in America. 
The methods and practices bv which all corporate privileges have been grasped, 
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mance of the business world as absorbing in its interest as any ancient or 
mediasval romance of conquest. 

White Bllll (The) ; a Satirical Romance. How the Princess Amasidia 
meets a Bull ; How She had a Secret Conversation with a Beautiful Serpent. 
The Seven Years Proclaimed by Daniel are accomplished. Nebuchadnezzer 
resumes the Human Form, Marries the Beautiful Amasidia, etc.; also 
ZADIG ; OR FA TE. The Blinr 1 of One Eye ; The Nose ; The Dog 
and the Horse ; The Envious MaL The Generous ; The Minister ; The 
Disputes and the Audiences ; The W^,. .a Beater ; The Funeral Pile ; The 
Supper ; The Rendezvouz ; The Robber ; The Fisherman ; The Basilisk ; 
The Combats ; The Hermit ; The Enigmas, etc., by M. de Voltaire. Pa. 25c. 

J3F* Sir John Lubbock names Zadig in his list of the 100 best books ever written. 

Wixon (Susan H.) All in a Lifetime. Liberal Romance.$i. 5 c 



Apples Of Gold. Children's Stories $1.25 

Story Hour. For Children and Youth. "Without Superstition." 

66 full-page and 25 smaller illustrations, large type, heavy toned paper, 
broad margins, illuminated covers. Bds., 4to, 224 pp $1.00 

World's Religions (The.) Describing the Doarines, Rise. 
Practices, Priesthoods' and Moral Teachings of all the Principal 
Religions of the Present Day and of Past Times. Bv G. T. 
Bettany, M. A., B. Sc, author of "The World's Inhabitants," 

etc. With about 300 wood engravings. 8vo, cloth $3;°° 

" A monument'of industry and research . . . crammed with information. 
... A work -teeming with fact, erudition, and illustration."— The Daily 
Telegraph. 

Wright (Frances.) A Few Days in Athens 75cts. 

Give us Mutual Liberty and Intellectual Freedom rather 
than Divine Faith and SuperstitiousiDogmas. 



Old Spanish Romances. 

Illustrated by 48 beautiful Etchings by R. de Los Rios. 12 vols., 
crown 8vo, cloth $18.00 ; half calf extra, or, half morocco, $36.00. 

•♦« 

The History of Don Quixote of la Mancha. 

Translated from the Spanish of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra by 
Motteux. With copious notes (including the Spanish Ballads), and 
an Essay on the Life and Writings of Cervantes, by John G. Lockhart. 
Preceded by a Short Notice of the Life and Works of Peter Anthony 
Motteux, by Henri Van Laun. Illustrated with sixteen original 
Etchings by R. de Los Rios. 4 vols., post 8vo, 1,758 pp., $6.00. 

Lazarillo de Tormes. (Life and Adventures of) 

Translated from the Spanish of Don Diego Hurtado De Mendoza, 
by Thomas Roscoe. Also, the Life and Adventures of 
Guzman d'Alfarache; or, The Spanish Rogue, by 

Mateo Aleman. Translated from the French edition of Le Sage, 
by John Henry Brady. Illustrated with eight original etchings by 
R. de Los Rios. 2 vols., post 8vo, 729 pp., $3.00. 

Asmodeus, or the Devil upon Two Sticks. 

Preceded by dialogues, serious and comic between Two Chimneys 
of Madrid. Translated from the French of Alain Rene Le Sage. 
Illustrated with four orginal etchings by R. de Los Rios. 1 vol., 
post 8 vo., 332 pp., $1.50. 

The Bachelor of Salamanca. ByLeSage. Trans 

lated from the French by James Townsend. Illustrated with four 
original etchings by R. de Los Rios. 1 vol., post 8vo, 400pp., $1.50 

Vanillo Gonzales, or the Merry Bachelor. By 

Le Sage. Translated from the French. Illustrated with four original 
etchings by R. de Los Rios. 1 vol., post 8vo. 455 pp., $1.50. 

The Adventures of Gil Bias of Santillane. 

Translated from the French of Le Sage by Tobias Smollett. With 
biographical and critical notice of Le Sage by George Saintsbury. 
New edition, carefully revised. Illustrated with twelve original etch- 
ings by R. de Los Rios. 3 vols., post 8vo. 1,200 pp., $4.50. 



Press Notices. 

"This prettily printed and prettily illustrated collection of Spanish Ro- 
mances deserve their welcome from all students of seventeenth century liter- 
ature."— The Times. 

-'A handy and beautiful edition of the works of the Spanish masters of 
romance We may say of this edition of the immortal work of Cer- 
vantes that it is most tastefully and admirably executed, and that it is em- 
bellished with a series of striking etchings from the pen of the Spanish artist 
De los Rios.'*— Daily Telegraph. 

"Handy in form, thev are well printed from clear type, and are got up 
with much elegance; the etchings are full of humor and force. The read - 
public have reason to congratulate tnemselves that so neat, cotnpgcs, and 
I arranged an edition of romances that can never die is put wittiifl their 
The publisher has spared no pains witn them."— Scotsmal 



Popular editions of the Spanish Romances, 
Asmodeua; or, the Devil upon Two Sticks. 

By A. R. Le Sage. With designs by Tony Johannot. Translated 
from the French. With fourteen Illustrations. Post 8vo, 332 pp., 
paper, socts., cloth $1.00. 

A new illustrated edition of one or the masterpieces of the world of fiction 

The Bachelor of Salamanca. ByLeSage. Trans 

lated from the French by James Townsend, with five illustrations 
by R. de Los Rios. 400 pp., paper, 50 cts., cloth $1.00. 

Adventures related in an amusing manner. The writer exhibits remark- 
able boldness, force, and originality while charming us by his surprising 
flights of imagination and his profound knowledge of Spanish character. 

Vanillo Gonzales, or the Merry Bachelor. By 

Le Sage. Translated from the French. With five illustrations by 
R. de Los Rios. 455 pages, paper 50 cts., cloth $1.00. 
Audacious, witty, and entertaining in the highest degree. 

The Adventures of Gil Bias of Santillane. 

Translated from the French of Le Sage by Tobias Smollett. With 
biographical and critical notice of Le Sage by George Saintsbury. 
New edition, carefully revised. With twelve illustrations by R. de 
Los Rios. 3 vols., post 8vo, 1,200 pp., cloth $3.00. 
A classic in the realm of entertaining literature. 

Napoleon. Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and Conversations of the 
Emperor Napoleon, by the Count de Las Cases. With eight steel 
portraits, maps and illustrations. Four vols., post 8vo, each 400 
pp., cloth, $5.00, half calf extra, $10.00. 

With his Son the Count devoted himself at St. Helena to the care of the Em- 
peror, and passed his evenings in recording his remarks. 

Napoleon in Exile; or A Yoke from St. Helena. 

Opinions and Reflections of Napoleon on the Most Important Events 
in his Life and Government, in his own words. By Barry E. 
O'Meara, his late Surgeon. Portrait of Napoleon, after Delaroche, 
and a view of St. Helena, both on steel. 2 vols., post 8vo, 662 pp., 
cloth $2.50, in half calf extra, $5.00. 

Mr. O'Meara's work contains a body of the most interesting and valuable 
information- information the accuracy of which stands unimpeached by any 
attacks made against its author. The details in Las Cases' work and those ot 
Mr. O'Meara mutually support each other. 

Shakespeare Portrayed by Himself. AReveia^ 

tion of the Poet in the Career and Character of one of his own Dra- 
matic Heroes. By Robert Waters. 1 vol., i2mo., cloth extra, $1.25. 

In this able and interesting work on Shakespeare, the author shows con 
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is written in good and clear language, exceedingly picturesque, and is alto 
gether the best popular life of Shakespeare that has yet appeared. 

Cobbett's, (Wm.) English Grammar. Edited b> 

Robert Waters. 1 vol., i2mo., cloth $1.00. 

'Of all the books on English grammar that I have met with, Cobbett's 
seems to me the best and, indeed, the only one to be used with advantage in 
teaching English. His style is a model of correctness, of clearness, and ot 
strength. He wrote English with unconscious ease. —Richard Grant White. 

"The best English grammar extant for self -instruction. —School Board 
Chronicle. "As interesting as a story-book. "-Hazhtt. 

" The only amusing grammar in the world."- Sir henry l.ytton Bulwer. 

11 Written with vigor, energy, and courage, joined to a force ot understand- 
ing, a degree ot logical power, "and force of expression which has rarely been 
equalled."- Saturday Peview. 

These Works are Highly Valued by all who Possess them. 




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